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THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA 

AND 

OTHER HISTORICAL STUDIES 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
And uniform in size and style with this Volume. 

THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH: 

A HISTORY OF THE VARIOUS NEGOTIATIONS FOR . 
HER MARRIAGE. 

Third Edition, with portraits. Cloth, 12s. 

" A clear and very interesting account. An excellent book." — The Times. 

" We would counsel a perusal of that very remarkable volume, ' The Courtships 
of Queen Elizabeth,' which, besides being in the highest degree entertaining, 
furnishes utterly new views of the spacious times of great Elizabeth." — The Daily 
Telegraph (Leading Article). 

"A delightful book."— The Daily Telegraph (Review). 

" Without a perusal of Mr. Hume's most researchful and interesting volume, no 
one, no student even of Froude can claim to have thoroughly grasped the character 
and aims of our good Queen Bess." — The Daily Chronicle. 

" Mr. Hume, who is the learned editor of the Calendar of Spanish State Papers 
issued by the Record Office, has gone to the fountain-head. A connected and 
consistent — though assuredly a most extraordinary story. A fascinating picture." — 
Standard (Leader). 

" Mr. Hume has performed his task admirably. In his hands the story of a unique 
series of farcical courtships becomes a luminous study in sixteenth century inter- 
national diplomacy." — The Daily Ncics. 

" A luminous and fascinating narrative. Mr. Hume's masterly and impartial 
narrative. It is undeniabty an important addition to the history of the Elizabethan 
period, and it will rank as the foremost authority on the most interesting aspect of 
the character of the Tudor Queen." — Pall Mall Gazette. 

"Among the historians of the later Victorian era Mr. Hume will take high rank. 
His contributions to our knowledge of Elizabethan times are the result of attain- 
ments which no other writer can claim to possess. He is to be congratulated on 
producing a work with which no student can afford to dispense if desirous of under- 
standing the character of Elizabeth, and which no other living Englishman could 
have produced." — The Observer. 

" Mr. Hume is a serious authority with far too great a keenness for facts to be a 
partisan. One might make dozens of pointed extracts, but the book is distinctly one 
to be read by those who care for past manners." — Daily Courier. 

" Mr. Hume tells an interesting tale with enviable clearness and felicity of 
language. He may claim to have made a valuable addition to our knowledge of 
one of the greatest of our national benefactors." — The Echo. 

" Eminently thorough and lucid, and throws fresh light on what has long been 
one of the most perplexing as it will ever be the most amusing chapter in the 
English annals." — The Glasgow Herald. 

"The volume is based on authentic State papers . . . explored with great pains 
and marvellous industry." — Dublin Daily Telegraph. 

" A careful and learned piece of work." — Manchester Guardian. 

" A serious and able work." — Spectator. 

" This volume is a splendid contribution to English history." — The Birmingham 
Gazette. 

" The story is altogether a very remarkable one, and is now told for the first time 
with fulness and accuracy. Students of English and European history during the 
critical sixteenth centurj' period cannot afford to overlook this strikingly interesting 
volume." — The Freeman. 

" A very curious and important chapter in English history . . . throws a flood of 
light on the character and methods of the Queen." — The Tablet. 

" Written in a charmingly clear literary style, and the solid character of its 
contents should recommend it to serious readers." — Aberdeen Free Press. 

" Extremely interesting. The author is to be congratulated on having written a 
most entertaining record." — The Daily Graphic. 

" It has the interest of a novel. This engrossing history of the various negotiations 
for the Queen's marriage." — The Sketch. 



London : T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square, E.C. 




ROBERT DEVEREUX. SECOXD EARL OF ESSEX. 

(After a contemporary portrait in the collection of the Earl of Verulam.) 



HTHE YEAR AFTER 
THE ARMADA 



% % AND OTHER HISTORICAL STUDIES 
BY MARTIN A. S. HUME, f.r.hist.s. 

EDITOR OF THE CALENDAR OF SPANISH STATE 
PAPERS OF ELIZABETH (PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE) 
AUTHOR OF "THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH," ETC. 




" ' There is no book so bad,' said the bachelor, ' but that some- 
thing good may be found in it.' 'There is no doubt of that,' 
replied Don Quixote." — Don Quixote, pt. ii. 



NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 



MDCCCXCVI 

L 



<& 



3625 



[All rights reserved.'] 



&0 
MY MOTHER. 






PREFACE. 



Circumstances have led me to follow the course 
of modern history into somewhat unfrequented 
channels, and in the pursuit of my main object it 
is occasionally my good fortune to come across a 
piece of unused or unfamiliar contemporary infor- 
mation — some faded manuscript or forgotten news- 
letter — which seems to throw fresh light upon an 
important period or an interesting personality of the 
past. It is true that in some cases the matters 
recounted are not of any great historical significance, 
but even then there is generally some quaint glimpse 
to be caught of bygone manners or events which 
redeems the document from worthlessness. From 
such treasure-trove as this, and from other sources 
which have generally been overlooked or neglected 
by English historians, the studies contained in the 
present book have been drawn; and it is hoped that 
some fresh knowledge as well as amusement may be 
gained from them. 



Vlll 



PREFACE. 



If the reader is only half as much interested in 
perusing as I have been in writing them, I shall 
consider myself very fortunate. Jj 

Some of the studies have^lready appeared in 
Magazines, but the principal portion of the book 
is now printed for the first time. 



MARTIN A. S. HUME. 



London, September, 1896. 







CONTENTS. 



THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA 

JULIAN ROMERO — SWASHBUCKLER 

THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPANISH ARMADA 

A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY 

A. PALACE IN THE STRAND 

THE EXORCISM OF CHARLES THE BEWITCHED 

A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA 

THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE 



I 

73 
123 

175 
205 
261 
289 
321 

343 






**&»$/ 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



THE EARL OF ESSEX Frontispiece 

(After a contemporary portrait in the collection of the Earl of Vend am.) 

/ PHILIP AND MARY To face p. 125 

(After the painting by Antonio Mor.) 

V QUEVEDO To face p, 256 

(After the portrait by Velasquez, at Apsley House.) 

CHARLES II. OF SPAIN To face p. 29 1 

(After the portrait by Claudia Cocllo, at the Madrid Museo.) 

/ PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN To face p. 323 

{After the portrait by Velasquez, in the National Gallery.') 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 




THE YEAR AFTER THE 
ARMADA. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 1 

On the night of Sunday, the 28th of July, 1588, the 
great Armada was huddled, all demoralised and 
perplexed, in Calais roads. Only a week before 
the proudest fleet that ever rode the seas laughed 
in derision at the puny vessels that alone stood 
between it and victory over the heretic Queen and 
her pirate countrymen, who for years had plundered 
and insulted with impunity the most powerful 
sovereign in Europe. Gilded prows and fluttering 
pennons, great towering hulls which seemed to 
defy destruction, the fervid approbation of all Latin 
Christendom, and the assurance of Divine protection, 
combined to produce in the men of the Armada 
absolute confidence in an easy conquest. But six 

1 For the sake of uniformity, throughout this narrative the 
dates are given in the " old style," then used in England, ten 
clays earlier than the dates cited by the Spanish and Portu- 
guese authorities. 



4 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

days of desultory fighting in the Channel had opened 
their eyes to facts thitherto undreamed of. Handy 
ships, that could sail several points closer to the 
wind than their unwieldy galleons, could harass and 
distress them without coming to close quarters. At 
first they shouted that the English were afraid of 
them, but as the sense of their own impotence 
gradually grew upon them their spirits sank. Brave 
they were, but, said they, of what use is bravery 
aeainst foes who will not fiQ-ht with us hand to 
hand in the only way we wot of? And so from 
day to day, whilst they straggled up the Channel, 
their boasting gave place to dismay and disorgani- 
sation. They saw their ships were being sunk 
and disabled one after the other, whilst the 
E no-fish vessels were suffering; little damage and 
had safe ports of refuge behind them. Thus at 
the end of the week they found themselves with 
a dangerous shoally coast to leeward, in an 
exposed roadstead surrounded by the reinforced 
English fleet. They were ripe for panic, for their 
commander was a fool and a craven in whom they 
had no confidence ; and when the English fireships 
drifted down upon them with the wind, flaring in 
the darkness of the summer night, abject paralysing 
terror turned the huge fleet into a hustling mob of 
ships, in which the sole thought was that of flight. 
From that moment the Armada was beaten. The 
storms on the northern and Irish coasts, the cold, 
the rotten food and putrid water, pestilence and 
panic, added dramatic completeness to their dis- 
comfiture ; but superior ships, commanders, and 
seamanship had practically defeated them when 
they slipped their cables and anchors and crowded 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 5 

through the narrow sea with the English fleet to 
windward and sandbanks on their lee. 

But the Armada had represented the labour, the 
thought, and the sacrifice of years. Every nerve 
had been strained to render it irresistible. Spain 
and the Indies had been squeezed to the last 
doubloon, careful Sixtus V. had been cajoled into 
partnership in the enterprise, and the Church 
throughout Christendom had emptied its coffers to 
crush heresy for once and for ever. All along the 
coast of Ireland from the Giant's Causeway to 
Dingle Bay the wreckage of the splendid galleons 
was awash, and many of the best and bravest of 
Spain's hidalgos, dead and mutilated, scattered the 
frowning shore; or, alive, starved, naked, and plun- 
dered, were slowly done to death with every circum- 
stance of inhumanity by the Irish kerns or their 
English conquerors. It could hardly be expected, 
therefore, that on the receipt of the dreadful news 
Spain should calmly resign itself to defeat. Such 
lessons as this are only slowly and gradually brought 
home to the heart of a nation ; and after Mendoza's 
lying stories of victory had been contradicted, and 
the fell truth ran through Spain as the battered, 
plague-stricken wrecks of what was left of the 
Armada crept into Santander, the first heart-cry 
was for vengeance and a re-vindication of the 
national honour. 

Medina Sidonia was the scapegoat (perhaps 
not undeservedly, though Parma should bear 
his share of blame), and as he went in state and 
comfort through Spain to his home in the south, 
the very children and old women in the streets 
jeered and spat upon him for the chicken-hearted 



6 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

coward who had disgraced their country in the eyes 
of the world. Only the over-burdened recluse in 
the Escorial was patient and resigned under the 
blow. He had, as he thought, done his best for the 
cause of God ; and if for some inscrutable reason 
all his labour, his sacrifice, and his prayers were to 
be in vain, he could only suffer dumbly and bend 
his head to the Divine decree. One after the other 
the provinces and municipalities came to him with 
offers of money to repair the disaster. In November 
the national Cortes secretly sent him word, "that 
they would vote four or five millions of gold, their 
sons and all they possess, so that he may chastise 
that woman, and wipe out the stain which this year 
has fallen on the Spanish nation." I But the Cortes 
and the Town Councils always tacked upon their 
offers two conditions, born of their knowledge that 
peculation and mismanagement were largely respon- 
sible for the disaster of the Armada. " First that 
his Majesty will act in earnest ; and secondly that 
their own agents may have the spending of the 
money which they shall vote, for in this way his 
Majesty will not be so robbed and all affairs will 
go far better." 2 But the last condition was one that 
Philip could never brook : the secret of his failure 
through life was that he wished to do everybody's 
work himself and he was smothered in details. 
Besides this there were difficulties, diplomatic and 
others, in the way, of which the people at large 
were unaware. The star of Henry of Navarre was 
rising, and all France was now alive to Philip's real 
object in the invasion of England. Philip knew' 
that in any repetition of the attempt he would prob- 
1 Venetian Calendar of State Papers. 2 Ibid. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 7 

ably not have to confront England alone. So the 
cries for vengeance grew fainter, and national feeling 
was gradually turned purposely in other directions. 

But these cries had been loud enough to reach 
E no-land. Exasperated rumours of the intention 
to renew the Armada were industriously sent from 
all quarters by zealous spies and agents, and an 
uneasy feeling grew that perhaps, after all, 
England had not finished her foe ; for Elizabeth's 
advisers had no means of exactly gauging the depth 
of Philip's purse, and they knew the papal coffers 
were overflowing. It is true that immediate danger 
was over. The hasty English levies had been sent 
home again, bragging of the prowess they would 
have shown if the hated Spaniard had dared to land, 
and the panic and fright had given place to perfectly 
natural congratulations on the special protection 
vouchsafed by the Almighty to the Virgin Queen 
and her people. The heroics were over, and Eng- 
land was free, for the present at all events, to don 
its work-a-day garb again. 

But the easy victory had inflamed men's minds. 
There had been very little fighting even on the 
fleet, and none at all on shore ; and it is not 
pleasant to be balked of a set-to when all is ready, 
and to turn swords to bill-hooks without once 
fleshing them in an enemy's carcase. So the 
idlers in England who were loath to go to 
work again, the turbulent youngsters who were 
burning for an excuse to have a go at somebody, 
and the lavish gentlemen who were thirsting for 
loot, began on their side to talk about vengeance 
and retaliation. It mattered little to them that for 
a long course of years England had been the 



8 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

aggressor, and that Philip had exhausted all diplo- 
matic and conciliatory means, including even secret 
murder, and the subornation of treason, in England, 
to arrive at a peaceful modus vivendi. For thirty 
years he had suffered, more or less patiently, 
robbery, insult, and aggression in his own dominions 
at the hands of Elizabeth. The commerce of his 
country was well-nigh swept from the sea by 
marauders sallying from English ports or flying the 
English flag. His own towns, both in the Spanish 
colonies and in old Spain, had been sacked and 
burnt by English seamen without any declaration 
of war ; and rebellion in the ancient patrimony of 
his house had been, and was still, kept alive by 
English money and English troops. 

Englishmen, then as now, had the comfortable 
and highly commendable faculty of believing their 
own side always to be in the right, and they knew 
in this particular case that it was much more 
profitable to plunder than to be plundered, to 
attack rather than defend. Elizabeth's caution 
and dread of being forced into a costly national 
war had over and over again caused her to dis- 
countenance this tendency on the part of some 
of her advisers, though she was ready enough 
to share the profits when her official orders were 
disregarded and her own responsibility evaded. 
Only the year before the Armada she had per- 
emptorily ordered Drake, when he was ready to 
sail for Cadiz, not to imperil peace by molesting 
any of the territories or subjects of his Catholic 
Majesty. But when he came into Dartmouth, after 
"singeing the King of Spain's beard," towing behind 
him the great galleon San Felipe, with its 600,000 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 9 

ducats in money, the Queen smiled upon him as if 
he had never disobeyed her. But for her positive 
orders of recall indeed, Drake on this very voyage 
would have made the Armada impossible by 
destroying, as he was able and ready to do, all the 
ships preparing for it in Lisbon harbour. 

Only just before the Armada, in June, 1588, the 
idea of diverting and dividing Philip's forces by 
attacking him in his own country, ostensibly in the 
interest of Dom Antonio, the Portuguese pretender, 
was broached by Lord Admiral Howard in a 
letter to Walsingham, now in the Record Office. 
The scheme assumed definite form soon after the 
flight of the Armada, when, in September, Sir John 
N orris presented to the Queen a complete plan for 
fitting out an expedition with this object by means 
of a joint-stock company, which might be made both 
patriotic and profitable at the same time. Such a 
proposal was one eminently likely to suit the Queen, 
frugal and evasive of responsibility as she was. 
N orris and his associates suggested that the capital 
of the company should be ,£40,000 at least, out of 
which the Queen was to subscribe £5,000, and to 
appoint a treasurer, who was to supervise the ex- 
penditure of the whole. The Queen's contribution 
was only to be spent by permission of this treasurer, 
and if the enterprise fell through for want of sub- 
scribers she was to have her money returned to her 
or the munitions of war which had been purchased 
with it. The Queen, as was her wont, discreetly 
hesitated about it ; and it was not until addresses 
had been presented from Parliament begging her 
to adopt some such action that she consented to 
take shares in the enterprise. But her treasury was 



io THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

well-nigh empty ; and willing as she was that any- 
thing should be done to weaken her enemy, her 
poverty and Tudor frugality forbade her from 
undertaking to defray any very large portion of the 
cost herself. So she answered her petitioners that 
although she would sanction the enterprise and 
subscribe something to it, the main cost must be 
borne by others. 

The story of this ill-starred expedition is usually 
disposed of in a few lines by English historians, 
although its success would have completely changed 
the status of England on the Continent. What is 
known of it hitherto is practically confined to the 
official documents and letters in the Record Office, 
which have only become accessible of late years, a 
few letters in the Bacon and Naunton Papers, and 
a curious tract printed in Hackluyt and ascribed to 
Captain Anthony Wingfield, minutely describing 
and apologising for the proceedings. The account 
was written in the same year, 1589, as the expedition 
took place ; and the writer, whoever he was, : 
evidently witnessed the events he relates. His 

1 In a subscription reprint of sixty copies of this tract 
published in 1881 under the editorship of the Rev. Alexander 
Grosart, the authorship appears to be ascribed, I know not 
on what grounds, to a certain Robert Pricket, who served 
probably as a gentleman volunteer and follower of the Earl 
of Essex. He had seen previous service in the Netherlands, 
and was the author of several poetical works, one being a 
panegyric on the Earl of Essex. The tract is entitled " A 
True Coppie of a Discourse, written by a gentleman employed 
in the late voiage of Spaine and Portingale. Sent to his 
particular friend and by him published for the better satis- 
faction of all such as having been seduced by particular report 
have entered into conceipts tending to the discredit of the 
enterprise and Actors of the same. At London. Printed for 
Thomas Woodcock, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the 
sign of the blacke Beare 1589." 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 11 

description is most graphic and interesting, and 
presents the English view of the enterprise in its 
best possible light, although all his explanations 
and palliations cannot succeed in conjuring away 
the utter failure of the expedition, or the bad 
conduct of the men who took part in it. The 
English account, however, all indulgently unflattering 
as it is, is not the only one extant. The publication 
of the latest volume of the Calendar of Venetian 
State Papers puts us into possession of the version 
of the affair current in the Spanish Court and con- 
veyed to the King from his officers in Portugal ; and 
in addition to this I possess the transcript of an 
unpublished contemporary manuscript which exists 
in the library of Don Pascual de Gayangos at 
Madrid, written by a Castilian resident in Lisbon 
at the time of the invasion, containing a detailed 
diary of the event. 1 This manuscript, I believe, 
has never yet received the attention it deserves 
from historians, but it is nevertheless valuable as 
confirming in the main the English accounts, but 
relating the incidents from an entirely different 
point of view. I have also recently discovered 
in the Pombalina Library in Lisbon still another 
contemporary manuscript diary of the English 
invasion, written by a Portuguese gentleman in 
Lisbon who was present at the scenes he describes, 
and whose standpoint is widely different from those 
of the Castilian and the Englishman. 2 The Spaniard 



1 It is called " Relacion de lo subcedido del armada enemiga 
del reyno de Inglaterra a este de Portugal 5011 la retirada a su 
tierra, este ano de 1589." MS. Gayangos Library. Tran- 
script in possession of the author. 

2 " Memoria do successo da vinda dos Ingreses ao reino de 



12 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

is full of scorn and contempt for the chicken-hearted 
Portuguese in Lisbon who, though sympathising 
with the native pretender, slunk into hiding at 
his approach ; whilst the Portuguese diarist insists 
vehemently upon the loyalty of the Portuguese 
nobles to Philip, and ascribes the instability of the 
common people to their weakness and incredulity, 
to their fear of the anger of Saint Antonio if they 
opposed his namesake the pretender, to their desire 
tc^ protect their wives and families, to any other 
reason but the obvious one that high and low, 
rich and poor, in the city were in a state of 
trembling panic from first to last, utterly cowed 
and appalled by the few Spaniards whom they 
hated as much as they feared. 

In 1578, ten years before the Armada, the rash 
young King Sebastian of Portugal had disappeared 
for ever from the ken of men on the Moorish battle- 
field which had seen the opening and closing of his 
mad crusade. For centuries afterwards the Portu- 
guese peasants dreamt of his triumphant return to 
lead to victory the hosts of Christendom. But he 
came not, unless indeed one of the many claimants 
who long afterwards assumed his name was indeed 
he; and in the meanwhile, when his uncle, the child- 
less Cardinal King Henry, died, Portugal wanted a 
monarch. 

It had a large choice of descendants of Dom 
Manoel, grandfather of the lost Sebastian, but the 
Magna Charta of the Portuguese, the laws of Lamego 
(apocryphal as we now believe them to have been), 
were then universally accepted, and strictly excluded 

Portugal." Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon. Pombalina, 196, fol. 
271. Transcribed by the author. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 13 

foreigners from the throne ; and all the claimants 
were aliens but two, the Duchess of Brao-anza, 
daughter of the elder son of Dom Manoel, and 
doubtless the rightful heiress ; and Dom Antonio, 
a churchman, prior of Ocrato, the questionably 
legitimate offspring of Manoel's second son. 

When the Cardinal King died in 1580, Philip II., 
who for two years had been intriguing, suborning, 
and threatening the leading Portuguese to acknow- 
ledge his ri^ht to the succession, stretched out his 
hand to grasp the coveted crown. Of the two native 
claimants one, the Duchess of Brao-anza, was timid 
and unready ; the other, Dom Antonio, was ambitious, 
bold, and eager. Around him all that was patriotic 
grouped itself. The poorer classes bitterly hated the 
foreigner, and particularly the Spaniard, whose King- 
was really the only other serious claimant to the 
throne. The churchmen were devotedly attached 
to the ecclesiastical claimant, the nobles were 
Portuguese before all, and Antonio was acclaimed 
the national sovereign. But not for long ; the terrible 
Alba swept down upon Lisbon, as years before he 
had come down upon the Netherlands, and crushed 
the life out of Portuguese patriotism. There was 
no religious question to stiffen men's backs, and no 
William of Orange to command them here. The 
Portuguese were made of different stuff from the 
stubborn Dutchmen, and Alba rode roughshod 
over them with but little resistance. Antonio was 
soon a fugitive, hunted from town to town, holding 
out for weeks in one fortress, only to be starved into 
another ; proclaimed a bastard and a rebel, with a 
great price set upon his head ; and yet for eight 
long months he wandered amongst the mountain 



i 4 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

peasantry, as safe from betrayal as was Charles 

Edward amongst the Scots Highlanders. At last 

Antonio gave up the game and fled to France, 

and thence to England. He came in July, 1581, 

and was immediately made much of by the Queen 

and Leicester. In vain did Mendoza, Philip's 

ambassador, demand his surrender as a rebel. 

The Queen said she had not quite made up her 

mind to help him, but she had quite decided that 

she would not surrender him to be killed. He was 

too valuable a card in her hand for her to let him go, 

and she made the most of him. He was treated with 

royal honours, and covert aid was given to him to 

strengthen the Azores, which were faithful to him. 

He had taken the precaution to bring away the crown 

jewels of Portugal with him, the spoils of the two 

Indies, but he had no money. The greedy crew that 

surrounded the Queen soon scented plunder, and 

money for warlike preparations, the purchase of 

ships, and the like, was speedily forthcoming on 

security of diamonds and pearls such as had rarely 

been seen in England. Elizabeth and Leicester, in 

presents and by a quibble, managed to grab some of 

the best ; and most of those pledged to the London 

merchants ultimately fell into the Queen's hands. 1 

1 Mendoza, writing to Philip from London, August 8, 1582, 
gives one instance of this amongst several. He says : " The 
Queen lent Dom Antonio ^3,000 when he was here, and I 
understand she peremptorily demands payment of the sum, 
taking possession of the diamond which was pledged here for 
a sum of ^'5,000 lent by merchants, who offer to relinquish 
their claim to the Queen, if she will lend them ^'30,000 free of 
interest for six years out of the bars brought by Drake, which 
they will repay in five yearly instalments of ^6,000 each. So 
far as I can learn, this talk of the loan is a mere fiction and a 
cloak under which the Queen may keep the diamond for the 
^8,000 on the ground that the merchants advanced the ^5,000 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 15 

Some were left with Walsingham for safety, but 
when they were demanded Walsingham alleged 
that he was personally responsible for some pro- 
visions Antonio had ordered, and made difficulties 
about giving them up. So long as the money lasted 
Antonio might spend it in England and leave his 
diamonds, but some specious excuse was always 
invented to prevent any openly hostile expedition 
to attack Philip leaving an English port under 
Antonio's banner. The rascally Dr. Lopez, who 
was afterwards hanged at Tyburn for attempting 
to poison the Queen, was Dom Antonio's go- 
between and interpreter at Court, and he, greedy 
scamp as he was, made a good thing out of it 
until the money began to run short, when, in his 
usual way, he sold his knowledge to Philip, and 
attempted more than once to poison the unhappy 
Pretender. Antonio, indeed, was surrounded by 
spies though he knew it not, 1 but he found he 
was being frustrated, betrayed, and defrauded in 
every way in England, and his precious jewels 
the meanwhile were slipping away. So, in dudgeon 
with the greedy English, he fled to France and took 

by her express order, without which they would not have done 
so. This plan was invented by Cecil in order to prevent Dom 
Antonio from getting his diamond back again." 

This diamond is probably identical with the celebrated 
stone given by Charles I. when Prince of Wales to the 
Count- Duke of Olivares, favourite of Philip IV., when 
Charles and Buckingham went on their foolish visit to 
Madrid. A contemporary account (Soto's MS. in the 
Academy of History, Madrid) describes the diamond as 
being of the purest water, weighing eight carats and called 
" the Portuguese," from its having been one of the crown 
jewels of Portugal. It had a great pearl pendent from it. 

1 See Calendar of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth, vol. 3, 
for particulars of them. 



16 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

such of his vessels as he could gain possession of 
with him. Catharine de Medici, the Queen-mother, 
was, for form's sake, a claimant to the Portuguese 
throne herself, but her shadowy claim was soon 
abandoned when she had an opportunity of cherish- 
ing such a thorn as Antonio promised to be in the 
side of her powerful late son-in-law Philip. Antonio 
still had jewels, and whilst they lasted he was treated 
with consideration and regal splendour in that gay 
and dissolute Court. He certainly got more return 
for them there than he got in England. Many were 
scattered in bribes amongst the easy-going ladies and 
painted mignons of the Court, and most of the rest 
went to pay for two costly naval expeditions fitted 
out in France in the Queen-mother's name, to enable 
Antonio to hold the islands faithful to him. 1 But 
Santa Cruz swooped down upon Terceira as Alba 
had pounced upon Lisbon, and the merry-making 
crew of revellers was soon disposed of. Then 
poor Antonio fell upon evil days. The emissaries 
of Philip, false friends of Antonio, tried time after 
time to put him out of the way by poison and the 
dagger, but he was ever on the watch ; and for help 
and safety, still sanguine and hopeful, drifted from 
France to England and from England to France, 

1 The first of these, in 1582, commanded by Strozzi, con- 
sisted of 55 ships and 5,000 men. Terceira, which was held 
for Dom Antonio, welcomed it at once, and in the midst of 
the rejoicings to celebrate the event the Spanish fleet under 
Santa Cruz appeared and scattered the French like chaff, 
Strozzi being killed, Antonio barely escaping, and the fleet 
almost entirely destroyed. The second expedition in the 
following year under Aymar de Chastes with 6,000 men was, 
curiously enough, beaten by Santa Cruz in the same place and 
under exactly similar circumstances (" Un pretendant portu- 
gais du xvi. siecle "). 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 17 

the plaything in the game alternately of Elizabeth 
and Catharine, to be taken up or cast aside as 
the interests of the players dictated. 

Philip's open attempt to invade England in 1588, 
seemed once more to offer him a chance of success, 
and his hopes rose again. One gem, and one only, 
of all the rich store he brought from Portugal was 
left to him ; but that was the most precious of them 
all, the eighth greatest diamond in the world, the 
chief ornament in the Russian imperial crown to- 
day. 1 It was his last stake, and he decided to risk 
it on his chance. It was pledged to Monsieur de 
Sancy, whose name it ever afterwards bore, and 
with the money so raised Antonio started for 
England to tempt Elizabeth to link his desperate 
cause with her hopes of revenge upon Spain. 

This was in the autumn of the Armada year, 1588, 
and, all unconscious of his vile treachery to him, 
Antonio once more evoked Lopez's influence at 
Court to gain the ear of the Queen and the support 
of his close friend Walsingham. The venal Jew, 
who was for ever craving rewards and favours, 
persuaded the Queen, no doubt for a weighty 
consideration, to listen anew to the pretender's 
proposals. 2 

1 It is a curious co-incidence that this gem was long after- 
wards carried away from England by another fugitive King, 
James II., who sold it, as Antonio had done, to provide for 
his needs. It had formerly belonged to Charles the Bold of 
Burgundy, the great-grandfather of Philip II. 

2 After the return of the expedition Lopez writes (July 12, 
1589) to Walsingham, deeply regretting that the Queen had 
been induced by his advice to spend so much money to no 
purpose, and hinting that he had intimated to Dom Antonio 
that he and his Portuguese were not wanted in England. On 
the same day he himself craves for help in his need and again 
asks for a thirty years' monopoly of the import of aniseed and 

3 



18 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

The adventurer-king was confident that if he 
could once set foot again in his own country with 
an armed force the whole population would flock to 
his standard, and he was ready to promise anything, 
and everything, for the help he wanted. Already 
in 1582, when Catharine de Medici had aided him 
to fit out the fleet under Strozzi at Bordeaux which 
was to hold Terceira and restore Antonio to the 
throne, the desperate gamester had promised her 
the great empire of Brazil as a reward for her help ; 
and now, if my Spanish diarist is to be believed, he 
offered to make himself a mere vassal of Elizabeth 
if he were successful. 

In the Record Office there is a bond by which 
Antonio undertakes, in February, 1589, to re- 
imburse to the adventurers all the cost of the 
enterprise and the pay of the soldiers, but the 
Spanish manuscript gives the substance of an agree- 
ment between Dom Antonio and the Queen which 
promises much more than mere repayment. The 
diarist I quote says : — 

"The Queen, cautious and astute as she was, 
caught at the fine promises that Dom Antonio held 
out and insisted that an ao-reement should be 
entered into ; which was done, in substance as set 
forth in the following- clauses. This agreement was 
brought, written in the English language, by a 
certain Portuguese named Diego Rodriguez who 

sumach into England. He was executed in 1592, and was 
in high favour almost up to the day of his arrest. In the 
Mendoza Papers in the National Archives in Paris, to which I 
have had access, are documents proving that he made a 
regular trade of poisoning — or attempting to poison, as he 
does not seem to have been very successful in the cases 
recorded. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 19 

came hither as treasurer to this expedition and 
passed over to the service of our lord the King on 
the eleventh of June. The clauses, translated into 
Castilian, say as follows : — 

" First her Majesty the Queen of England under- 
takes to provide a fleet of one hundred and twenty 
vessels and twenty thousand men — 15,000 soldiers 
and 5,000 sailors — with captains for both services, 
to eo and restore Dom Antonio to the throne of 
Portugal. 

" Dom Antonio undertakes that within eight days 
from the arrival of the said fleet in Portugal the 
whole country will submit to him in accordance with 
the letters he has received from the principal people 
in the said kingdom. 

" Item, That on arriving in Lisbon the city will 
be reduced at once without any defence and all 
Castilians in it killed and destroyed, and, for the 
friendship and aid thus shown him in recovering his 
kingdom, he undertakes to fulfil the following things 
— namely : — 

" First that within two months of his arrival in 
Lisbon he will hand to her Majesty the Queen as 
an aid to the costs of the fleet five millions in gold. 

" Item, In testimony of the help she has given 
him he will pay every year to the Queen for ever 
three hundred thousand ducats in gold, placed and 
paid in London at his cost. 

" Item, that the English should have full liberty 
to trade and travel in Portugal and the Portuguese 
Indies and the Portuguese equal freedom in Eng- 
land. 

" Item, That if the Queen should not desire to fit 
out a fleet against the King of Spain in England 



20 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

she shall be at liberty to do so in Lisbon and shall 
be helped in all that may be necessary. 

." Item, That the castles of Sao Gian, Torre de 
Belem, Capariza, Oton, Sao Felipe, Oporto, 
Coimbra and the other Portuguese fortresses shall 
be perpetually occupied by English soldiers paid at 
the cost of Dom Antonio. 

" Item, That there shall be perpetual peace 
between her Majesty the Queen and Dom Antonio 
and they shall mutually help each other on all 
occasions without excuse of any sort. 

" Item, That all the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics 
in Portugal shall be filled by English Catholics and 
the Archbishopric of Lisbon shall be at once filled 
by the appointment of Monsieur de la Torques 
(sic). 

" Item, On arriving at Lisbon every infantry man 
shall receive twelve months pay, and three extra, as 
a present from Dom Antonio and they shall be 
allowed to sack the city for twelve days, on condition 
that no man of any rank shall presume to harm any 
Portuguese or molest the churches or houses 
wherein maidens are dwelling ; and also that they 
pay in money for whatever they may need in the 
country. Which agreement her Majesty ordered to 
be duly executed under date of last day of Decem- 
ber 1588." 1 

The Spanish scribe waxes very indignant at this 
document, showing, as he says it does, the sagacity of 
the Queen and the blind infatuation of Dom Antonio, 

1 It is certain from letters of Dom Antonio's friends in 
London, now in the Archives Nationales (K 1567), that it was. 
not until the end of December that Antonio was confident 
that the fleet was really intended to aid him. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 21 

" who gives up the substance for the shadow of king- 
ship, and is content to make the Portuguese subjects 
slaves so that he shall be called King - ." But he is 
most shocked at the sacrifice to this "pestilent sect" 
of the two instincts dearest to the Portuguese heart, 
namely, devotion to their Church and their greed of 
gain ; the first of which, he says, will be destroyed 
by relationship with the accursed heretics, and ■ the 
second attacked by the substitution for " our lord 
the king who does not spend a maravedi of Portur 
guese money, but brings Castilian money into 
Portugal," of a King who has promised to pay 
away more than the Portuguese can ever give him. 
" And besides," he says, plaintively, "we Castilians 
and Portuguese are not so estranged in blood of 
boundaries after all, for only a line divides us, and 
if it be hard for the Portuguese to endure connec- 
tion with their Castilian kinsmen who bring riches 
into the country and take nothing from it how much 
worse will it be to put up with a nation so greedy 
and insolent as the English, separated from them 
by land and sea, and foreign to them in customs, 
language, faith and laws ? " 

He ridicules the idea of five millions (of ducats) 
in gold being paid, and says he supposes that a mis- 
take of a nought has been made, which probably 
was the case ; but even then, he asks, where is 
such a sum as 500,000 ducats to come from, "let 
alone the 15 months' pay"? However correct or 
otherwise in detail this agreement may be, it is 
certain that some such terms were made, and it may 
be safely assumed that Elizabeth, with her keen eye 
to the main chance, would take care to make the 
best bargain she could out of the sanguine eagerness 



22 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

of Dom Antonio, who would be ready to promise 
" mounts and marvels " for ready aid. 1 My Portu- 
guese diarist also ridicules the impossible terms 
promised by the Pretender, but adds the false finish- 
ing-touch, evidently spread by the Castilians for the 
purpose of arousing" the indignation and resistance 
of the Portuguese, that the churches were to be 
plundered and the Portuguese inhabitants of Lisbon 
despoiled. 

It would appear strange at first sight that Eliza- 
beth should have made any proviso for the benefit 
of English Catholics whom she had sometimes 
treated so unmercifully, but on other occasions she 
had favoured the idea of English Catholic settle- 
ments being; established across the seas under her 
sway ; and the great body of Catholic sympathisers 
resident in England had not acted altogether un- 
patriotically in the hour of panic and terror on the 
threat of invasion. It would, therefore, not have 
been an impolitic move to earn their gratitude 
and further loyalty by opening a new field for them 
outside of her own country but, in a manner, under 
her control. 

On the 23rd of February, 1 589,2 the Queen issued 
a warrant of her instructions for the expedition, ap- 

1 There is a rough memorandum in Burleigh's writing, 
September 20, 1588, in the Record Office, setting down the 
details of the proposed expedition, in which he mentions that 
four thousand men are to be sent for from Holland, as well 
as two thousand horsemen volunteers. At the foot of the 
memorandum Burleigh sets down the "Articles of offers 
from King Antonio. 

" 1. To attempt to burn ye shippes in Lysbon and Civill." 
•' 2. To tak Lysbon." 
"3. To tak the Hands." 

2 Calendar of State Papers (Domestic). Record Office. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 23 

pointing Sir John Norris T and Sir Francis Drake to 
the chief command thereof, and in it lays down pre- 
cise rules for their guidance. She says that the 
objects of the expedition are two : namely, first to 
distress the King of Spain's ships, and second to get 
possession of some of the Azores, in order to inter- 
cept treasure passing to and from the East and 
West Indies. Also to assist the Kingf Dom 
Antonio to recover the kingdom of Portugal, 
' ' if it shall be found the public voice in the king- 
dom be favourable to him." 

On the same date authority was given to Norris 
and Drake to issue warrants to the adventurers for 
their shares in the enterprise ; and the Queen her- 
self undertook to repay them if the expedition were 
stopped at her instance. Courtiers and swash- 
bucklers touted their hardest for subscriptions to 
this joint-stock warfare, and pressure was put upon 
country gentlemen to subscribe liberally as a proof 
of their patriotism — a pressure not to be disregarded 
in those doubtful times. 2 The Queen's subscription 
ultimately reached ,£20,000, besides seven ships of 
the Royal Navy. Promises of money and arms 
were forthcoming in abundance, and flocks of idlers, 
high and low, offered their valuable services. The 
scum of the towns, the sweepings of the jails, were 
pressed for the voyage, and Pricket (or Wingfield), 

1 Norris had greatly distinguished himself in Ireland and 
the Netherlands, notwithstanding Leicester's persistent 
attempts to ruin him ; and, from his conduct there and 
during this expedition, he would appear to have been brave, 
but turbulent and of doubtful discretion. 

2 Philip was informed late in December by his spies in 
England that Drake was to contribute 12,000 crowns, the 
Earl of Essex 10,000, Norris 8,000, and London Merchants 
24,000, and that the Queen had advanced ^20,000. 



24 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

in his apology for the expedition, lays most of the 
blame of failure on the kind of men they had, and 
complains bitterly of the justices and mayors send- 
ing them " base disordered persons sent unto us as 
living at home without rule." He says many idle 
young men, having seen their fellows come back 
after a few months in the Netherlands full of their 
brave deeds and tales of the wars, " thought to 
follow so good an example and to spend like time 
amongst us," and finding soldiering a harder trade 
than they had bargained for, were not likely to 
make good troops. 

The misfortunes of the enterprise began before it 
was fairly launched. As may be supposed, promises 
of support, given under such circumstances as those 
which I have described, were hardly likely to be 
strictly kept, and the performance in this case fell 
far short. Pricket (or Wingfield) bemoans this as 
follows : " For hath not the want of 8 out of the 12 
pieces of Artillerie which was promised unto the 
adventure lost her Majestie the possession of the 
Groyne and many other places as hereafter shall 
appeare whose defensible rampiers were greater 
than our batterie (such as it was) could force and 
therefore were lost unattempted. It was also re- 
solved to send 600 Eno-lish horse out of the Low 
Countries whereof we had not one, notwithstanding 
the great charge expended in their transportation 
hither. . . . Did wee not want seaven of the thir- 
teene old Companies we should have had from 
thence ? foure of the ten Dutch Companies and 
sixe of their men-of-warre for the sea from the 
Hollanders ? which I may justly say we wanted in 
that we might have had so many good souldiers, 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 25 

so many good shippes, and so many able bodies 
more than we had. 

" Did there not, upon the first thinking of the 
journey, divers gallant courtiers put in their names 
for adventurers to the summe of ,£10,000, who seeing 
it went not forward in good earnest, advised them- 
selves better and laid the want of so much money 
on the journey ? " 

But the expedition was got together somehow. 
Men were cajoled into the belief that they were 
going on a great plundering excursion, and would 
soon return home again loaded, as Wingfield says, 
with " Portosfues " and " Milraves " which should 
make them independent for life. There were no 
surgeons, no carriages for the hurt and sick, and 
from the first the discipline was of the loosest. 
Provisions were said to be shipped for two months, 
but in some of the ships the men declared they were 
starved from the first day. 

Even amongst contemporaries much difference of 
statement exists as to the number of ships and men 
that composed the expedition, although this differ- 
ence is partly accounted for by a fact which will 
presently be mentioned, and which has hitherto 
escaped notice. We should probably not be far out 
when we put the number of soldiers who left Ply- 
mouth at about 16,000 and the sailors at 2,50c 1 

1 On the eve of departure Norris and Drake officially told 
the Council that the total number of all sorts was 23,375. 
Captain Fenner, Drake's vice-admiral, gives the number as 
21,000 (Bacon Papers). Captain Baillie, of the Mary German, 
in a letter to Lord Shrewsbury says the landsmen alone were 
20,000 ; whilst Drake himself, in one of his many letters begging 
for supplies, says, " 20,000 men cannot be kept for a trifle." 

Camden, the historian, speaks of 12,500 soldiers, and Speed, 
following Pricket's tract, puts the number of landsmen at 



26 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

Of the men-at-arms all but the three or four thousand 
old soldiers, mostly from the Netherland wars, were 
idle vagabonds whose first idea was loot and 
whose last was fighting. In addition to these there 
were 1,200 gentlemen or more, the flotsam and 
jetsam of the Court, younger sons of slender for- 
tunes, and gallants whose hearts were aflame to do 
good service to their country. Seven I of. the 
bravest of the Queen's ships, of three hundred tons 
burden each, twenty other armed ships, and a large 
number of transports and galleys of light draft, 
would have completed the fleet, but sixty German 
smacks and sloops, which had been wintering in 
Holland on their way to Spain, were pressed into 
the service and added to the number, which finally 
reached nearly two hundred sail. The 1st of 
February was the date originally fixed for starting, 
but when that date arrived nothing was ready but 
the army of idlers, who wanted feeding, so that 
when the fleet could have sailed it was found that 
most of the stores had been consumed, and in some 
ships not a week's provision remained. Money ran 
short, and Drake and N orris wrote, day after day, 

11,000 and mariners at 2,500. There is a letter in the 
British Museum from one of the Portuguese nobles (Count 
de Portalegre) to Philip II., in which the army before Lisbon 
is spoken of as 12,000 men ; and the Spanish diarist whose 
MS. I have mentioned says 16,000 men-at-arms left England 
and very few sailors. The terrible mortality from sickness, 
&c, and the comparatively small number that came back 
made English writers of the time anxious to minimise the 
disaster by underrating the numbers of the expedition. 

1 English accounts usually say six, but I am inclined to 
believe the Spanish account is correct, as Drake writes to the 
Council (Record Office , Domestic Calendar), after the six 
ships had been appointed, asking for a larger vessel, the 
Victory, " in respect of the King Dom Antonio." 









THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 27 

during all the month of March and first two weeks 
in April, heartrending letters to the Council and to 
Walsingham. The provisions were run out, they 
said ; the enterprise must fall through if help be not 
sent at once. They point out the dishonour and 
disgrace of such a lame ending, and again and 
again beg for more provisions. 

The innkeepers and victuallers of Canterbury, 
Southampton, Winchester, Plymouth, and else- 
where wrote dunning letters to the Queen for money 
due for stores supplied. The Dutch shipmasters 
commanding the flyboat transports contributed by 
the States formally protested and refused to put to 
sea with such insufficient provender as they had ; 
and, just as it looked as if the expedition would 
break down for good, there came providentially 
into the harbour a Flemish ship with a cargo of 
dried herrings, another with five hundred pipes 
of wine, and above all a sloop loaded with barley. 
These provisions were promptly transferred to 
the fleet to the dismay of the masters, who pro- 
tested for many a day afterwards, fruitlessly, against 
the confiscation of their cargoes. The expedition 
was declared ready for sea, but then came tales 
of contrary winds that kept them in and out 
of harbour for several days more ; and one day, 
whilst they were thus detained, the Queen's kins- 
man, Knollys, comes post haste from London. Had 
anybody seen or heard anything of the young Earl 
of Essex, the Queen's last new pet ? Curiously 
enough nobody had, although only the day before a 
party of young gallants had dashed into Plymouth 
from London all dusty and travel-stained, and had 
been received with open arms by the courtiers and 



28 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

officers on the fleet. Hot-blooded Essex, with all 
the thoughtlessness of his twenty-two years, tired of 
sickly dallying with an old lady and of squabbling 
with Raleigh, tired of his debts, his duns and duties 
as prime favourite, had made up his mind to see 
some fun, and had fled against the Queen's orders. 
No one had seen him of course, but the Swiftsure, 
with Sir Roger Williams, the general second in 
command of the army, mysteriously left the har- 
bour as soon as Knollys had told his tale. But 
a few hours later the Earl of Huntingdon came 
with warrants of arrest and all manner of peremp- 
tory papers, and Drake saw the matter was serious. 
Boats were sent scouring after the Swiftsure, but 
could oret no news of the missing earl. The other 
ships stayed in Plymouth ten days longer for a fair 
wind, but the Swiftsure came back no more until the 
expedition was at an end. Drake and N orris wrote 
nearly every day until they sailed disclaiming any 
knowledge of Essex or his intention to join the 
force, and expressing their deep sorrow ; but the 
Queen did not believe them, and from that time 
had nothing but hard words and sour looks for an 
adventure that had robbed her of her favourite. 
At length, on the 13th of April 1589, (O.S.), the 
expedition finally left Plymouth, but even then it 
was only a feint in order that the men might be 
kept together and not stray on shore and get out 
of hand. "The crosse windes held us two daies 
after our going out, the Generalls being wearie 
thrust to sea in the same wisely chosing rather to 
attend a change out there than to lose it when it 
came by having their men on shoare." 

Knocking about in the Channel in bad weather 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 29 

was, however, not to the taste of some of the 
ruffians who thought they were bound over summer 
seas to a paradise of plunder ; and three thousand 
men in twenty-five ships, probably most of them 
owned by the recalcitrant Dutchmen, deserted and 
were heard of no more — at least so far as the expe- 
dition was concerned. This desertion to some 
extent explains the divergence between the accounts 
given of the numbers of the expedition. 

The rest of the fleet on the third day caught a 
fair wind and stretched across the Bay of Biscay in 
fine spring weather. They were four days before 
their eyes were gladdened by the sight of Cape 
Finisterra, but in the week they had been at sea 
their provisions were running out. Murmurs at the 
short commons were heard on all the ships, and it 
was seen that the only way to keep the scratch 
crews from open mutiny was to give them a chance 
of plunder. 

So, instead of obeying the Queen's strict injunc- 
tions — for Drake was a far better hand at command- 
ing than obeying — and landing poor Dom Antonio 
on the country he assured them was yearning for 
him, they bore down upon Corunna, on the north- 
west coast of Spain. For months before this, as the 
difficulties attending- the fittino- out of a new 
Armada became more evident, terror-stricken 
rumours had pervaded Spain that the dreaded 
Drake, who had now become a sort of supernatural 
bogey to the Spanish people, was about to descend 
upon this or the other place on the coast and wreak 
a terrible vengeance for the Armada. Early in 
January even false news came to Madrid that an 
English fleet had appeared outside Santander, and 



30 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

at the end of the month the Venetian ambassador 
in Madrid writes to his Doge that news had just 
arrived from Lisbon that forty sail of English ships 
were out, divided into squadrons of eight or ten 
ships each, and were doing much damage. It was 
feared, he said, that they would all unite under 
Drake and make an attempt first upon Portugal 
and then will go to the Azores, and finally to the 
Indies. The fitting out in Spain of fifty ships to 
protect the seas was hurried on ; but, says the 
Venetian, "it is thought that two months must 
elapse before they can be ready, and then one 
does not see what they can do against such light 
ships as the enemy's." 

Philip was dangerously ill and sick at heart. Fear 
reigned supreme in his councils- — fear that Drake 
the terrible would ravage the coasts whilst Henry 
of Navarre crossed the Pyrenees. The Portuguese 
nobles were known to be disaffected, and a rising in 
favour of Dom Antonio was feared. Philip, with 
the energy of despair, did what he could, ill as he 
was, immersed in mountains of papers dealing with 
trivial detail. But he could do little. The Portuguese 
nobles who were at all doubtful were ordered to come 
to Madrid, the Spanish grandees were enjoined to 
raise and arm their followers and hold themselves in 
readiness to march either towards the Pyrenees or to 
Lisbon. Then rumours came that the Moorish King 
of Fez was to act in concert with the English, and 
seize the Spanish possessions on the African coast 
opposite Gibraltar. 

It will thus be seen in the distracted condition 
of affairs that Spain was practically defenceless 
against a sudden descent on the coast, but most 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 31 

defenceless of all at the extremely remote north- 
west corner of Spain, where Drake decided to land. 
The fear was mostly for Portugal, where, we are 
told, " the population is so impatient of the present 
rule that neither the severity of penalties or garri- 
sons of soldiers, nor the ability of governors have 
succeeded in quieting the contumacious spirits. This 
causes a dread lest Drake who is acquainted with 
those waters may furnish pretexts for fresh risings 
and they (the Spaniards) wish to be ready to crush 
them." J The troops they raised, says the Venetian 
ambassador, were inferior in quality of horses and 
men : raw levies pressed unwillingly into the service, 
whilst Portugal was in violent and open commotion 
awaiting the arrival of Drake the deliverer. 

But whilst all panic-stricken regards were directed 
upon Portugal, Drake and his joint-stock Armada sud- 
denly appeared where they were least expected, be- 
fore Corunna, and cast anchor ; and the men, nothing- 
loath, were put on shore in a little bay within a mile 
of the town. There was no one to stay their land- 
ing, and they had come nearly to the gates before 
a hasty muster of townsfolk met them. These, all 
unprepared and surprised as they were, soon re- 
treated when they saw the force that was coming 
against them, and shut themselves up behind the 
gates and walls of the town. The place was weak 
and ill-garrisoned, commanded by the Marquis de 
Cerralba, and could not hope to hold out against a 
regular siege, but there were three galleons loaded 
with arms in the harbour, which the new com- 
mander-in-chief in Madrid, Alba's son Fernando, 
said would be a much greater loss than the town 
1 Venetian Calendar. 



32 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

itself. The English slept the first night in the 
cottages and mills belonging to a hamlet on the 
bank of one of the small streams discharging into 
the bay, and out of gunshot of the walls. They 
were, however, quite unmolested by the terrified 
townsfolk, although the galleon San Juan and her 
consorts in the harbour kept up a fire upon them 
as they passed to and fro. 

The place indeed was utterly taken by surprise. 
The Cortes of Galicia were in session at the time, 
the people peacefully pursuing their ordinary avoca- 
tions ; the soldiers of the garrison were nearly all on 
furlough, scattered over the province ; " and, in 
short, every one was so far from expecting an attack 
that they had no time to turn the useless out of the 
town nor put their dearest possessions in safety." 
The wife and daughter, indeed, of the Governor 
Cerralba at the first alarm fled in their terror two 
leagues on foot, through the night, to a place of 
safety, but after that none dared to move. The 
lower part of the town fronting the harbour was 
protected on the land side only by weak walls, and 
was unfit for protracted defence. The townspeople 
therefore agreed that if the place were attacked on 
the water side it would be untenable, and arranged 
that as soon as those in the higher town on the hill 
should espy the English boats approaching they 
were to signal the low town by a fire, so that the 
people below might make their escape to the better 
defensible upper portion of the town. Some artillery 
was landed by the English to stop the fire of the 
Spanish ships, and on the morning of the second day 
the town was attacked simultaneously by 1 , 200 men in 
long boats and pinnaces under Captain Fenner and 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 33 

Colonel Huntly; and by Colonels Brett and Umpton 
on one side, and Captains Richard Wingfield and 
Sampson on the other by escalade. The people in 
the upper town, either from panic or oversight, 
neglected to give the signal, and those below, think- 
ing they had only to deal with an escalade on their 
walls by Captain Wingfield, fought desperately until 
they found two other forces had entered at other 
points, and then panic seized them, and, as Pricket 
(or Wingfield) describes it, "The towne was entered 
in three severall places ; with an huge crie, the 
inhabitants betooke them to the high towne which 
they might with less perrill doo for that ours being 
strangers knew not the way to cut them off. The 
rest that were not put to the sword in furie fled to 
the rockes in the iland and hid themselves in 
chambers and sellers which were everie day found 
out in great numbers." A perfect saturnalia seems 
to have been thereupon indulged in by the English 
troops. Here was the fruition of all their golden 
dreams — a flying, panic-stricken foe, ample pro- 
visions to loot and to waste, and, above all, wine 
without limit. " Some others {i.e., Spaniards) also 
found favour to bee taken prisoners but the rest 
falling into the hands of the common soldiers had 
their throates cut to the number of 500. . . . Everie 
seller was found full of wine whereupon our men by 
inordinate drinking both grewe senseless of the 
danger of the shot of the towne which hurt many 
of them, being druncke, and took the first ground 
of their sickness, for of such was our first and 
chiefest mortalitie." 

Great stores of provisions were found in the lower 
town, and many were also captured as they were 

4 



34 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

brought in by Spanish ships. These provisions 
were alleged by the English to have been collected 
for the purpose of a new attack on England, and it 
is quite probable that such was the case, although 
the evidence on the point is insufficient. At all 
events, the destruction of these stores is the only act 
which in any sense justified the expedition sent out 
by the adventurers. 1 

The next few days were spent by the invaders 
in desultory attacks on the upper town, burning 
a monastery and scouring the country round by 
Colonel Huntly, who "brought home verie great 
store of cowes and sheep to our great reliefe." A 
great crowd of country people, two thousand strong, 
came down with a run one day, armed with rough 
weapons, to see what manner of men were these who 
raided their cattle and burned their poor huts, but a 
discharge of musketry killed eighteen of them and 
sent the rest scampering away. 2 On " our side " we 
hear of an improvised gabion battery being shaken 
down by the first fire, and Master Spenser, the 
lieutenant of the ordnance, and many others killed 
by the enemy's guns as they stood all exposed. But 
brave Sir Edward N orris held his ground manfully 

1 The Venetian ambassador at Madrid, in his account to the 
Doge of the events at Corunna, says that Drake's booty from 
that place consisted of " 6,000 salted oxen, fifteen thousand 
jars of biscuit, 6,000 barrels of powder and 3,000 hogsheads 
of wine ; all of it provision for the Armada which went so un- 
successfully last year, or else to furnish a new Armada accord- 
ing to the design which they entertain. This plunder will 
prove of the greatest service to the English . . . and here the 
news has caused much chagrin ; and it is hidden or minimised 
as much as possible." 

2 It was said in Madrid that these two thousand peasants had 
only six muskets amongst them. — Venetian Calendar of State 
Papers. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 35 

until his orders came to cease firing and retire. 
Captain Goodwin makes a mistake of a signal and 
prematurely attacks the upper town, getting shot 
through the mouth as a reward, and the " common 
sort " drop off by drink, pestilence, and bullet plen- 
tifully enough, but unrecorded. Norris and Drake 
sent home by Knollys flaming accounts of their 
success, and still asked for more provisions from 
England and more money ; but Queen Bess was in 
a towering rage, and was not to be appeased. She 
could not forget or forgive the loss of her favourite. 
Raleigh and Blount were very well in their way, but 
she wanted Essex, and suspected Drake and Norris 
of being parties to his escape. On the 4th of May 
(O.S.) she wrote to them a remarkable letter, show- 
ing that she had tidings of Essex's being on board 
the Swift sure, and demanding dire vengeance on 
Sir Roger Williams, who helped to hide him. 1 

1 " She dowteth not but they have thoroughly weighed the 
heinousness of the offence lately committed by Sir Roger 
Williams in forsaking the army with one of her principal 
ships. If they have not already inflicted punishment of death 
upon him he is to be deprived of all command and kept in 
safe custody at their perils. If the Earl of Essex has joined 
the fleet they are to send him home instantly. If they do not 
they shall truly answer for the same at their smart, for as we 
have authority to rule so we look to be obeyed and these be 
no childish actions." — State Papers (Domestic), May 4, 1589. 

The draft of this letter, deeply scored by the Queen's own 
hand, was submitted to Walsingham by Windebanke, the 
Secretary of the Signet, and the minister said that although 
the letter was as mild as could be expected " under the cir- 
cumstances," he much feared that any proceedings against one 
so beloved as Sir Roger Williams would breed mutiny. And 
so apparently thought the generals, for they took no notice 
of the Queen's commands. 

The Queen wrote another outspoken letter to the generals 
on the 20th of May, in which she says they were perverting 
the object of their expedition ; which was to burn the King of 



36 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

After four days of fruitless pottering the troops 
were presumably sober enough to attempt an attack 
upon the upper town, and the guns being pointed 
against it, the general sent a drummer to summon it 
to surrender before he opened fire. The summons 
was answered by a musket-shot that laid the poor 
drummer low, but immediately afterwards a pole 
was projected over the town wall, and from it there 
dangled a man hanged by the neck. This was the 
man who had fired the dastard shot. And then 
the Spaniards called a parley, and begged that the 
war might be fair on both sides, as it certainly 
should be on theirs. Considering that five 
hundred of their brethren had their throats cut 
ruthlessly, after they had submitted, this was mag- 
nanimous at least ; " but as for surrendering the 
towne, they listened not greatly thereunto." 

So N orris banged away with his cannon for three 
days to make a breach in the wall of the high town, 
and at the same time set men to work to bore a 
mine in the rock beneath the gate, and at the end 
of the time, all being in readiness, and his men, 
under the gallant brothers Wingfield, with Philpot, 
Sampson, and York, waiting to storm the two 
breaches, the mine turned out a dismal failure, and 

Spain's navy and restore Dom Antonio, and then proceed to 
the Azores. Corunna, she says, is of little importance and the 
risk great, and she commands them to fulfil her orders at once. 
Do not, she says, suffer yourselves to be transported with an 
haviour of vainglory which will obfuscate the eyes of your 
judgment. 

Secretary Windebanke, writing" to Heneage at the same time, 
says the Queen is strangely set against the expedition, and is 
intensely incensed at the fruitless attack on Corunna. u She 
thinks they went to places for their own profit rather than for 
her service." — State Papers (Domestic). 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. Z7 

nothing was done. The next day they tried again, 
and this time with such success that one half of the 
gate tower was blown up, and the other half left 
tottering. On rushed the assailants. Some few 
got into the town, but as the officers and their 
immediate followers set foot on the breach and 
waved their men onward, down came the other half 
of the tower upon them, and crushed them beneath 
the ruins. Two standards were lost, but captured 
again, and scores of men were killed. In the dust 
and terror the unpractised soldiery thought they 
were the victims of some stratagem of the enemy 
and fled, leaving the officers and gentlemen volun- 
teers to extricate themselves as best they could. 
Poor Captain Sydenham " was pitifully lost, who 
having three or foure great stones on his lower 
parts was held so fast, as neither himself could 
stirre, nor anie reasonable companie recover him. 
Notwithstanding the next day being found to be 
alive there was 10 or 12 lost in attempting to 
relieve him." 

On the other side of the town the breach made 
in the walls by the culverins was too small, and 
when brave Yorke had led his men to push of pike 
with those who stood in the breach, the slope of 
rubbish on which they mounted suddenly slipped 
down, and left them six feet below the opening, and 
so they had to retreat too, through a narrow lane 
exposed to the full fire of the enemy, and thus the 
attack failed at both points. 

In the meanwhile all Galicia was arming, and 
a prisoner brought in by the cattle raiders gave 
news that the Count de Andrada, with 8,000 men, 
was at Puente de Burgos, six miles off, which was 



38 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

said to be only the beginning of a great army being 
got together by the Count de Altamira. On the 
next day, May 6th, it was determined to attack them, 
and nine regiments of English marched out to the 
fray. The vanguard, under Sir Edward N orris, 
was divided into three bodies under Captains 
Middleton, Antony Wingfield, and Ethrington, 
respectively, and attacked the enemy in the centre 
and both flanks simultaneously, routing them at the 
first charge. They only stopped running when 
they came to a fortified bridge over a creek of the 
sea, on the other side of which was their entrenched 
camp. Sir Edward N orris, with Colonel Sidney, 
and Captains Fulford, Hinder and others, always in 
front, fought hand to hand over the bridge and into 
the trenches, under "an incredible volie of shot for 
that the shot of their armie flanked upon both sides 
of the bridee." But the earthworks were soon aban- 
doned, and Sir Edward Norris, in his very eager- 
ness to be first, tumbled over his pike and hurt his 
head grievously. The officers of the vanguard 
were nearly all more or less hurt, but when the 
enemy had fled the usual amusement of the 
"common sort" commenced. All round for miles 
the country was burnt and spoiled, and the flying 
countrymen were slaughtered without mercy or 
quarter. " So many as 2,000 men might kill in 
pursuit, so many fell before us that day " ; and after 
that was over and the men were returning, hundreds 
of cowering peasants were found hidden in hedges 
and vineyards, and their " throates " were cut. 
Two hundred poor creatures took refuge in a 
" cloyster," which was burned and the men put to 
the sword as they tried to escape. "You might 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 39 

have seene the countrie more than three miles 
of compasse on fyre," says the English eye-witness, 
and he grows quite hysterical in his laudation of the 
English valour ; but the Spanish accounts tell how 
the Netherlands wars, and the fears for Portugal 
and the French frontier, had denuded all north- 
western Spain of soldiers, Count de Andrada's force 
only being a hasty levy of undrilled and practically 
unarmed countrymen, who were easily routed. 

The next day the English began to ship their 
artillery and baggage and made ready to depart, 
after again unsuccessfully trying to fire the upper 
town. They managed indeed to burn down every 
house in the lower town, and they set sail on 
May 9 (O.S.), 1589. 

In the meanwhile utter dismay reigned at Madrid. 
What was left of the fleet was acknowledged to be 
powerless for defence, and none knew for certain 
where the blow was to fall. The accounts from 
Corunna were intercepted by the Government, and 
were surmised to be worse than they really were ; 
but still the general opinion was not far out in 
supposing that Drake could not do much permanent 
harm on the open places on the coast, but would 
eventually attack either Lisbon or Cadiz. Fernando 
de Toledo was appointed commander-in-chief, but 
soldiers could not be got together. 1 Pietro de 
Medici was hastily ordered to raise 6,000 mer- 
cenaries in Italy ; and Contarini writes from 
Madrid to the Doge : "It is true that for want 

1 The bitter jest in Madrid at the time was that, whereas 
with the Armada the year before there went an army 
with no commander, there was now a commander with no 
army. 



4 o THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

of soldiers they have adopted a plan which may 
prove more hurtful than helpful ; they have enrolled 
Portuguese, and so have armed the very people 
whom they have cause to fear, but perhaps they 
think that as they have destroyed the leaders they 
have made themselves safe." 

N orris was almost as much dreaded as Drake 
himself, and his skill and daring suggested to the 
terrified Court that he might intend to cut through 
the neck of land upon which Corunna stands, and 
entirely isolate the town, which he might then make 
into a great depot for an English fleet. Philip, we 
are told, was in great anxiety, "not so much on 
account of the loss he suffers as for the insult 
which he feels that he has received in the fact that 
a woman, mistress of only half an island, with the 
help of a corsair and a common soldier, should have 
ventured on so arduous an enterprise, and dared to 
molest so powerful a sovereign." 

The bitterest blow of all to Philip was the know- 
ledge that Spain's impotence was now patent to the 
world, and that the mere presence of Drake was suffi- 
cient to paralyse all resistance. When the English 
force re-embarked at Corunna, says Contarini, they 
were not even molested, so glad were the besieged 
to be rid of him at any cost. "Whilst Drake was, 
at Corunna he was so strongly entrenched that he 
suffered no loss at all. If he had remained a few 
days longer the place would have fallen for the 
reliefs were not as ready as was rumoured. Drake 
occupied the place called the fishmarket. He 
knocked down houses, seized cattle, killed soldiers, 
released officers on ransom, and by pillage of the 
suburbs and the burning of monasteries seemed to 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 41 

care more for plunder than for glory." I As we 
have seen, in fact, Drake's sole reason for going to 
Corunna at all against his mistress' orders was to 
satisfy with loot the mutinous rabble on board his 
ships, but of this the Spaniards were naturally 
ignorant. 

The fleet sailed out of Corunna on the 9th of May, 
leaving smoking ruins behind them for many miles 
around ; but contrary winds drove the ships back 
again and again. At last, on the 13th of May, the 
truant Swift sure hove in sight, " to the great delight 
of us all," bringing the Earl of Essex, Sir Roger 
Williams, Master Walter Devereux ("the Earl's 
brother, a gentleman of wonderful great hope "), 
Sir Philip Butler ("who hath always been most 
inward with him "), and Sir Edward Wingfield. 

However glad the men of lower rank may have 
been to see the dashing young nobleman, Drake 
and Norris can hardly have been overjoyed. They 
knew by this time that Elizabeth was in earnest 
about it, and that the purse-strings would be drawn 
tighter, and the censure be stricter, whilst her errant 
favourite was with the expedition ; and some inkling 
of this even reached the writer of the English 
account of the expedition. " The Earle," he says, 
" having put himself into the journey against the 
opinion of the world, and as it seemed, to the 
hazard of his great fortune, though to the great 
advancement of his reputation (for as the honour- 
able carriage of himself towards all men doth make 
him highlie esteemed at home, so did his exceeding 
forwardness in all services make him to be wondered 

1 Contarini to the Doge. Venetian Calendar of State 
Papers. 



42 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

at amongst us) who I say put off . . . because he 
would avoide the importunity of messengers that 
were daily sent for his return and some other causes 
more secret to himself." 

The earl's first request was that he should always 
be allowed to lead the vanguard of the army ; 
"which was easilie granted unto him, being so 
desirous to satisfie him in all things " : and thence- 
forward to the end of the expedition he marched at 
the head with Major-General Sir Roger Williams, 
who seemed, by the way, " not one penny the 
worse " for her Majesty's anathemas. 

Early in the afternoon of May 16th (O.S.) the 
fleet cautiously approached the town of Peniche, in 
Portugal. Drake had learnt on his way that a 
great galleon from the Indies with a million crowns 
in gold had taken refuge under the guns of the 
fortress, and doubtless hoped to net so big a prize. 
But the Archduke Albert in Lisbon was also 
looking anxiously for the gold, and sent his galleys, 
under Bazan, to bring the galleon into the Tagus 
just before the arrival of the English at Peniche. 
The town of Peniche was held by Gonsalves de 
Ateide with a body of Portuguese who could not 
be trusted, and some Castilian reinforcements sent 
to him under Pedro de Guzman ; but the fortress 
was commanded by a Captain Araujo, who was 
known to be secretly in favour of Dom Antonio. 
Here it was determined to land the force, and 
Ateide drew up his men at the landing-place 
before the fortress and opened fire upon the ships 
as they entered the bay. On the other side of 
the harbour, half a league off, the surf was 
running high, and a landing there was looked 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 43 

upon as impracticable, so that the shore was left 
undefended. Suddenly, when least expected by 
the Spaniards, Norris began to land his men on 
this side. Hot-headed Essex would not even wait 
for his boat to reach land, but jumped into the 
beating surf breast high with Sir Roger Williams 
and a band of gentlemen, and so struggled ashore 
to protect the landing of the rest. By the time 
Ateide and his 350 Castilians had reached the spot 
2,000 English had landed on the beach of Consola- 
tion as it was called. Some slight show of resist- 
ance was made, and fifteen Spaniards fell at the 
push of the English pike ; but the Castilians were 
out-numbered and nearly surrounded, and were 
forced to retire precipitately inland to a neighbour- 
ing" hamlet to await reinforcements from Torres 
Vedras. When Norris had landed 12,000 or 13,000 
men, with the loss of several boatloads in the surf, 
but without further molestation from the Spaniards, he 
summoned the Portuguese commandant of the fortress 
to surrender. He replied that he refused to surren- 
der to the English, but would willingly do so to his 
lawful king, Dom Antonio. So the poor pretender, 
"bigger of spirit than of body," landed with his son 
Manoel, and his faithful bodyguard of a hundred 
Portuguese, to be received once more on his own 
land as a sovereign. He found all things ready for 
him : his canopy of state erected, plate for his table 
set out, and kneeling subjects seeking for his smiles. 
He spoke smoothly and fairly, we are told, to the 
country people, taking nothing from them, but 
giving, or at least promising, much, and assuring 
them all of his protection. 

But if their new sovereign was chary of oppress- 



44 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

ing them, no such scruples afflicted their Castilian 
masters. My Portuguese diarist says that the 
Spaniards retaliated for Araujo's treachery in sur- 
rendering Peniche by stealing everything belonging 
to the Portuguese they could lay their hands upon, 
and he cites one case in which they took the large 
sum of two thousand crowns from one of the most 
influential friends of the Spanish cause. " But," 
he says, apologetically, "in confused times such 
as these soldiers will act so." 

Dom Antonio's bodyguard was armed with 
muskets and pikes from the castle, and here the 
poor King kept his rough-and-ready Court for two 
days. He was tenacious of his regal dignity, and 
had many a little wrangle with the English about the 
scant ceremony with which they treated him. But 
greater disappointments were yet in store for him. 
The friars and peasants flocked in to salute their 
native king, but, alas, Antonio hoped and looked in 
vain for the coming of the lords and gentry from 
whom he expected so much. Wily Philip had been 
once more too cunning for his enemy. At the first 
whisper of the expedition he had banished to distant 
places in his own dominions every Portuguese noble 
— seventy of them in . all — who was not pledged hard 
and fast to the Castilian cause. One of Antonio's 
false friends, too, had escaped at Corunna, and had 
gone straight to Philip and divulged all the pre- 
tender's plans and the names of his supporters still 
in Portugal who were to help him into Lisbon. 
Their shrift, as may be supposed, was a short one, 
and when Antonio came to his kingdom he found 
none but monks and clowns to greet him. Such 
of the gentry as he approached were usually too 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 45 

panic-stricken to side with him, seeing the fate of 
others of their class, and my Portuguese scoffs at 
the insolence of the idea that Antonio and the 
English could hold Lisbon, even if they won it 
against all the might of Spain, or of the common 
Portuguese rising without the " fidalgos," and 
courting the ruin that would befall them if the 
" heretics " got the upper hand without the fidalgos 
to restrain them. 

But Antonio put a brave face on matters, and 
was all eagerness to push on to his faithful capital 
of Lisbon, which he was confident awaited him with 
open arms. His confidence to a certain extent 
seems to have been shared by Norris, and here 
the second great mistake of the expedition was 
made. The first vital error was the fruitless waste 
of time at Corunna ; the second was the resolution 
now arrived at by Norris, entirely against Drake's 
judgment, to march from Peniche overland forty-two 
miles to Lisbon. Drake, true to the sea and to 
the tactics by which he had so often beaten the 
Spaniards, was in favour of pushing on to Lisbon 
by sea, letting three or four fireships drift about 
the castle of Sao Gian, which commanded the 
entrance to the harbour, so that the smoke should 
spoil the aim of the guns, and then make a dash 
for the city — and doubtless, thought Drake, for 
the galleon, with its million gold crowns, lying in 
front of the India house. Dom Antonio, whose 
one idea was to keep foot on the land where he 
was king, sided with Norris. In vain Drake 
pointed out that they had no baggage train or 
proper provisions for a march through an enemy's 
country ; that they had only one weak squadron 



46 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

of cavalry, of which the cattle was out of condi- 
tion ; that they had no fitting field artillery ; and 
that once inland they would lose the support and 
protection of the fleet. 

It was all of no avail ; Dom Antonio and N orris 
had their way, and a single company was left to 
garrison Peniche, 1 supported by six ships, whilst 
the whole of the land forces were to march to 
Lisbon, and Drake undertook to bring the rest 
of the fleet to Cascaes, at the mouth of the river, 
when the weather would allow him to do so. 

During the night after the landing, some cavalry 
under Captain Alarcon had joined the Spaniards, 
and a force of Portuguese militia had also been 
sent in by Don Luis Alencastro, but they 
soon deserted their colours and left their officers 
to shift for themselves. The next morning at four 
o'clock Captain Alarcon and a few of the Spanish 
cavalry reconnoitred the position at Peniche, 
but found the enemy too many for them, and 
could only scour back as hard as they could 
ride to Luis Alencastro, the Grand-Commander of 

1 A letter in the collection of the Marquis of Salisbury at 
Hatfield curiously illustrates the not altogether happy rela- 
tions that existed between the English invaders and the 
pretender's friends. The letter is dated the 27th of May, 
and is from General N orris to Captain George (Burton ?), 
whom he had left in charge at Peniche, complaining that 
"the King is aggrieved that you do take upon you to give 
the word since he hath appointed a Governor. And in 
truth it is not reason but the Governor should have the 
pre-eminence and therefore henceforward fail not to let him 
have that honour." This is a sample of the frequent com- 
plaints that the English did not treat Antonio quite as a king 
expected to be treated in his own realm. The fact was that 
Antonio had been too long a suppliant and a fugitive depen- 
dent largely upon Elizabeth's caprices for the English to 
regard him otherwise than as a tool for their own ends. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 47 

the Order of Christ, who was endeavouring to 
reorganise a body of Portuguese a few miles off, 
on the road to Lisbon. But terrible tales of the 
strength of the English had already spread ; and 
when Alarcon and Guzman reached the Grand- 
Commander they found his hasty levies in a panic 
at the story that Drake had brought with him nine 
hundred great Irish dogs as fierce as lions, and 
"capable of eating up a world of folks." So they 
flatly refused to stir ; and the Grand-Commander 
could do no more than hasten back to Lisbon to 
inform the Cardinal-Archduke Albert of the state 
of affairs, whilst Guzman, with the troops, fell back 
upon Torres- Vedras, to hold if possible the road 
to Lisbon. 

In the meanwhile the capital was in a state of 
intense excitement. The native inhabitants, with 
a lively recollection of the sacking of the city by 
Alba, nocked to the other side of the Tagus, not- 
withstanding the strict orders of the Cardinal-Arch- 
duke to the contrary. Provisions and munitions of 
war were hastily sent from Spain, and the Prior 
Fernando de Toledo was already on the move, 
slowly bringing such troops as he could muster 
for the relief of Lisbon, whilst the castles and walls 
of the city were put into a state of defence. The 
Castilians, few in number and intensely hated by 
the townsfolk, knew that in a fight the brunt 
would fall upon them, and that the Portuguese, 
even though they might not help the enemy, and 
this was by no means certain, would not raise a 
finger to support the dominion of Philip. The 
priests went from house to house, strong adherents 
of Dom Antonio almost to a man, whispering that 



48 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

the English were not, after all, such bad people ; 
that there were many Catholics amongst them who 
were better Christians than the Castilians them- 
selves, and, as the Spanish diarist says, other 
things of the sort which will not bear repeating. 
To the well-to-do they said that as soon as a native 
king was on the throne their wealth would enor- 
mously increase, whilst the poor were told that 
" fishing in troubled waters was profitable to the 
fisherman." 

On the other hand, the Archduke, knowing 
the people with whom he had to deal, established 
a veritable reign of terror, and sacrificed without 
mercy — often without evidence — any person who 
was even suspected of open sympathy with the 
invaders, although it was well known in Madrid 
that the populace of Lisbon had tacitly agreed to 
open the gates to Dom Antonio and to massacre 
the Spaniards on his approach. Some Portuguese 
nobles had left the Archduke on the first landing 
of Dom Antonio, but, finding that most of their 
order had been terrorised into quiescence, returned 
to Lisbon and tendered their submission. They 
were at once beheaded or imprisoned, and the 
rest became more slavish than ever in their 
professions of attachment to the Archduke. Ter- 
rible stories were spread at the same time of 
the " impious abominations " of the English here- 
tics, and the dreadful fate that awaited all Catholics 
if the invader succeeded, until, as my Portuguese 
diarist says, " there was not even a loafer on 
the quay who did not know that he would be 
cast out or ruined if the English came." But 
it was all insufficient to make them willing to 






THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 49 

fio-ht. The exodus still continued, and under cover 
of night the people stole across the river by thou- 
sands, and a boat whose usual freight was two 
ducats could not now be hired under fifty, whilst 
a bullock-cart and bullocks which could be bought 
right out in normal times for fifty ducats now 
charged sixty for a single journey to Aldea Gallega, 
on the other side of the Tagus. The people of the 
provinces, says my Portuguese diarist, oppressed 
the flying citizens more than the English, until the 
scandal became so great that the Archduke had 
to interfere and check their rapacity. Under some 
excuse or another every Portuguese was anxious to 
get away and leave the fighting to be done by some 
one else. The Portuguese diarist stoutly denies that 
his countrymen were cowards or traitors, but always 
explains that the common people could not have 
risen without the lead of the native nobles ; and 
we have seen the methods by which they were 
terrorised and made powerless. The Spaniard, on 
the other hand, makes no secret of his contempt 
for the white-livered Lisbonenses, and uses much 
strong language about them. My Portuguese 
diarist greatly resents this feeling, and gives a 
little personal experience of his own to show how 
harsh were the words used by the Castilians to- 
wards the craven citizens. "On the morning," he 
says, " that the enemy fled I went up to the castle 
to get some things of mine out of my boxes which 
I had left there in the rooms of one of the officers, 
where I had determined to await my fate if things 
came to the worst. As I was on my way down to 
the palace again the rumour spread that the enemy 
was retreating, whereupon some soldiers ascended 

5 



50 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

the watch tower to enjoy the sight. I asked them 
when they returned if the good news were true 
that the enemy was really flying, and one of them 
answered me roughly that they who were flying 
were not the enemy but those who still stay in 
Lisbon. To which I answered him not a word but 
God be with ye." 

But by terrorism, energy, and promptness the 
Archduke at length got the city into a state for 
defence both against the enemy from without and 
the probable enemy within. The city water-tanks 
were locked and the supply brought from outside, 
so as to save the precious liquid for the coming 
siege. The resident Spaniards formed themselves 
into a bodyguard of 150 men, "very smart and 
well armed," and, as in duty bound, the Germans 
and Flemings offered two hundred harquebussiers 
in good order, whilst many Portuguese " fidalgos " 
slept in the corridors of the palace to protect the 
Archduke in the hour of need. Four colonels were 
appointed to organise bands of the inhabitants for 
the defence of the city, and Matias de Alburquerque, 
a famous sea-captain, took charge of the twelve war 
galleys in the Tagus and armed thirty merchant 
ships which were lying in the harbour. The defen- 
sive works round the city were divided into sections 
and apportioned to the command of officers of tried 
fidelity, whose names need not be recorded here, 
the river front being mainly entrusted to Portu- 
guese, who evidently considered theirs the post of 
danger, as they had not the walls to protect them 
along the quay side. The Castilians, however, 
made no secret of the fact that they were placed 
there as no attack was expected from the river. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 51 

The parts most strongly guarded, almost entirely by 
Spaniards, were the quarters of St. Catalina, San 
Antonio, and San Roque, facing the north and west, 
from which quarters the English were expected to 
approach. 

The English army, by all accounts twelve thou- 
sand strong, marched out of Peniche on the 17th 
of May, with the Earl of Essex and Sir Roger 
Williams leading ; and Drake, accompanying them 
to the top of a hill at some distance off, greeted 
each regiment as it passed him with kindly words, 
and hopes of success, which he could hardly have 
anticipated. 

Soon the English soldiery began to show their 
true metal. Strict orders had been given that the 
property and persons of Dom Antonio's faithful 
subjects were to be respected ; but as soon as 
they got clear of Peniche housebreaking and 
pillage became rife, and N orris had to order his 
provost-marshal, Crisp, to hang a few of the male- 
factors before he could obtain obedience. 

The Archduke had sent three squadrons of 
Spanish horsemen to reinforce Pedro de Guzman 
at Torres Vedras, block the road to Lisbon, and 
harass the English. They went out to reconnoitre 
the enemy at various points after he left Peniche, 
but they did not like the look of him, and fell back 
again to Torres Vedras, whilst messengers were 
hourly sent to the Archduke begging for more 
men, whom he could not send. At first it was 
rumoured amongst the English that a stand would 
be made at a village near Peniche, but when they 
arrived there the last Spanish horsemen were just 
scampering out of it. The next day it was said 



52 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

that certainly a great stand would be made at 
Torres Vedras, and this undoubtedly was the Arch- 
duke's intention ; but even the almost impregnable 
Torres Vedras was untenable with a few hundred 
horse and a body of militia, who, if they fought at 
all, would fight on the other side ; and the Spanish 
forces, for fear of being cut off from their base, 
hastily evacuated Torres Vedras and fell back 
gradually, harassing the flanks of the enemy as 
much as they could and cutting off stragglers. 

And so the main body of Norris' force, with 
the Earl of Essex and Sir Roger Williams always 
leading, moved rapidly and peacefully towards 
Lisbon, whilst the panic in the capital grew greater 
as the English came nearer. Peaceably — but 
hungry — for the land was bare, and the English, 
we are told, "found our food dry and tasteless and 
hankered after their own fat meats and birds, com- 
paring our barrenness with the abundance of their 
own land." There was little or no money in the 
host, and nothing was to be taken from the Portu- 
guese without payment. There was in any case 
very little to take, for most of the people along the 
road had fled or had been stripped clean by the 
Castilian soldiers who had orone before. Drake's 

o 

predictions of trouble in moving an army without 
a baggage train began to come true, and at last 
starvation was breeding open mutiny in the English 
host. Norris was then obliged to tell Antonio that 
unless food were forthcoming more plentifully the 
soldiers must be allowed to shift for themselves. 
The poor pretender could only beseech his con- 
troller, Campello, to scour the country far and wide 
for delicacies for the English, " who are naturally 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 53 

dainty and exquisite in their food " ; but he could 
only pay in promises, and the land was bare, so the 
invaders still marched a hungry host towards the 
larders of Lisbon. 

From day to day they were told that the 
Spaniards would certainly stand and fight to- 
morrow, but they were continually disappointed, 
as indeed was the stout-hearted Archduke in his 
palace, who received with dismay the constant 
news that his forces were falling further and further 
back towards the capital without fighting. 

Whatever country people had remained on the 
road welcomed the invaders with cries of " Viva el 
Rei Dom Antonio ! " but the poor King still looked 
in vain for the promised gentlemen. His desire to 
please his rustic adherents was almost pathetic. 
He condescended, we are told, to caress and 
embrace the "commonest little people"; and in 
order to make as brave a show as possible before 
the English, picked out any countryman who was 
decently fair-spoken to be paraded before them as 
some grand gentleman in disguise. But however 
hopeful he might show himself, he could not conceal 
the fact that not a dozen men-at-arms had joined 
him, and his only chance now was that Lisbon 
itself should declare in his favour. But the native 
citizens were distracted and divided. The judges 
and magistrates had abandoned their posts, the 
shopkeepers had deserted their stores, incendiary 
fires and pillage were of hourly occurrence, and the 
Archduke alone kept his head. Even he was not 
free from danger of attack, for more than one 
attempt was made to assassinate some of his chief 
officers. 



54 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

On one occasion a large number of men were 
caught deserting their posts and escaping in a 
boat to the other side of the Tagus. When they 
were brought to the Archduke for punishment he 
said if they were too cowardly to fight in defence 
of their God and their fatherland they were useless 
to him and could go. This he knew, that even 
the Castilian women would mount the walls and 
fight with stones, if need be, in such a cause. 
Albert required all his firmness and nerve, for one 
sign of weakness from him and his handful of 
Spaniards, would have given heart to the craven 
Portuguese within and without the walls, who were 
thirsting for their blood. 

Three-quarters of the Portuguese in Lisbon had 
fled or were in hiding, and the rest were in Spanish 
pay or watched day and night by jealous eyes. 
But watched as they were, and few in numbers, 
their hopes were still high, and amongst themselves 
their speech grew bolder. They got news daily 
from English prisoners and others of the approach 
of their king, and plotted together how they would 
serve the hated Castilians when the English 
deliverers came. 

The rumour ran that the city would be sur- 
rendered to the invader on Corpus Christi clay, 
and not a Spaniard was to be left alive, and much 
more to the same effect. But, alas ! on one occa- 
sion when a few English prisoners were being 
brought in a panic-cry arose that the invaders had 
entered the city, and then each man fled to hiding 
to save his own skin rather than to his post, and 
the few Spanish guards that remained had to drag 
them out of cellars and lofts by main force, kicking 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 55 

and cuffing them for a set of cowards for not help- 
ing the defenders. The Count de Fuentes, once 
on a false alarm, was sent out of the city with every 
man who could be spared to Orlas, three leagues off 
on the road to Cascaes, where it was expected the 
enemy would pass ; but the English went by Torres 
Vedras, and Fuentes had to hurry back into Lisbon 
again the same day, to avoid being cut off and 
the gates being shut against him. 

On the 19th of May Norris and his troops 
marched into Torres Vedras, where Dom Antonio 
was received with regal honours, and the oath of 
allegiance taken to him. He was desirous of 
making a detour to Santarem, through, as he said, 
a rich country favourable to him, but Norris knew 
the danger of delay, and insisted upon pushing 
forward to Lisbon. 

Guzman and his Spanish horsemen had fallen 
back during the previous night to Jara, nearer 
Lisbon, but he had left Captain Alarcon, with 
two companies of horse, to hang on the skirts of 
the enemy. The next day Captain Yorke, who 
commanded Norris' cavalry, determined to try 
their metal, and sent a corporal with eight men 
who rode through forty of the enemy, whilst 
Yorke himself, with forty English horse, put to 
precipitous flight Alarcon's two hundred. On the 
following day, May 21st, the English, disappointed 
again of a fight, were lodged in the village 
of Louvres, not far from Lisbon, which Guzman 
had hurriedly evacuated after being very nearly 
surprised by Norris. The village was small and 
the accommodation poor, so Drake's regiment, 
thinking to better their quarters, went to sleep at a 



56 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

little hamlet a mile off. In the early dawn a cry 
was raised of "Viva el Rei Dom Antonio! " which 
was the usual friendly salutation of the country folk. 
The young English sentries fraternised with those 
who approached, and admitted them into the sleep- 
ing-camp. It was an ambuscade, and many of the 
English were slain, but the enemy was finally driven 
off by two companies of Englishmen who were 
lodged near. The next day, at a village near 
Lisbon, a large number were treacherously poisoned 
by the bad water from a well, or, as some said, by 
the honey which they found in the houses. This 
was three miles from Lisbon, at a place called 
Alvelade, and at eleven o'clock at night Essex left 
the camp with Sir Roger Williams and 1,000 men 
to lie in ambuscade near the town. When they 
had approached almost to the walls a few of them 
began banging at the gates and otherwise trying 
to alarm those within and provoke a sally. But 
the device was too transparent, and a few men 
shot and a sleepless night were the only result. 
When the English had arrived at Alvelade, Count 
de Fuentes, with the main body of Spaniards, was 
at Alcantara, a mile or so nearer Lisbon. Thither 
Albert hastily summoned a council of war, and 
urged his officers at last to make a stand at 
once before the English could co-operate with 
their friends within the walls of Lisbon. Fuentes 
and the other Spanish commanders were of the 
same opinion, but the Portuguese Colonel, Fer- 
nando de Castro, made a speech pointing out 
that the English were short of stores, cut off from 
their base, and weakened by sickness and short 
commons. " Let us," he said, " fall back into the 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 15S9. 57 

city and conquer them by hunger and delay. 
Behind our walls they will be powerless to injure 
us, whilst we can draw abundant supplies from 
across the river, and they cannot blockade us even 
by land with less than 40,000 men." This exactly 
suited the other Portuguese, who were never com- 
fortable unless they had a good thick wall between 
themselves and their enemies. The opinion of the 
Spaniards was overborne, and the defending force 
entered the gates of Lisbon on Corpus Christi day, 
midst the ringing of bells and the more or less 
sincere rejoicing of the populace. Lisbon feasted 
and welcomed its defenders, whilst poor Dom 
Antonio, we are told, at Alvelade just outside, had 
not a fowl or even a loaf of rye bread to eat. 
" You may guess how he is hated by the Portu- 
guese," says my Portuguese diarist, " that he being 
so near his native Lisbon not even a costermono-er 
or a clown dared to send him a meal, whilst we in 
the city had plenty." 

Most of the houses adjoining the walls had been 
blown up, but the monastery of the Trinidade, down 
the hill towards the river, still remained. The prior 
was understood to be in favour of Dom Antonio, as 
were nearly all churchmen, and Ruy Diaz de Lobo, 
one of the few nobles with Dom Antonio, undertook 
to negotiate with him to admit the English to the 
city through the monastery garden. By the aid of 
two sympathetic monks he obtained access to the 
prior. But the latter had been gained over by the 
Spaniards, and a few hours afterwards the pale 
heads of Ruy Diaz de Lobo and the two monks 
were grinning with half-closed, lustreless eyes from 
the top of three poles on the great quay, whilst Sir 



58 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

Roger Williams and his men, when they approached 
the monastery in expectation of a friendly reception, 
were received with a shower of harquebuss balls, 
and fell back. The rest of the day, now that the 
main body of English had come up, was spent in 
quartering the men in the suburbs of the city, en- 
trenched camps being formed, protected by breast- 
works of wine-pipes filled with earth. Tired with 
their six days' march and their labour in the 
trenches, N orris' little army were glad to pass their 
first night before Lisbon in such peace as the 
besieged would allow them. 

If the enterprise was ever to succeed this was 
the moment. The English were more numerous as 
regards men bearing arms, but they had come upon 
their wild-goose chase against a fortified city without 
any battering artillery or proper appliances for a 
siege, whilst the Spaniards were behind strong 
walls, with unlimited sources of supply from the 
river front across the Tagus. N orris, on the other 
hand, was short of supplies, with fifteen miles of 
defensible country between him and Cascaes, the 
point where the fleet was to await him. The 
advantage, therefore, was clearly on the side of the 
besieged, but for the one element of the disaffection 
of Lisbon itself from within, and in this lay Dom 
Antonio's last chance. A letter written by Don 
Francisco Odonte, adjutant-general in Lisbon, on 
the day following the arrival of the English forces 
before the walls, gives a vivid description of the 
state of affairs there at the time. 1 

" Dom Antonio," he says, "spent the night in the 
house of the Duke d'Aveiro, and then early in the 
1 Venetian Calender of State Papers. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 59 

morning completed the investment of the city and 
continued his search for some secret gate by which 
he might enter. But the garrison harassed him as 
much as they could. Don Sancho Bravo and Captain 
Alarcon have been skirmishing all day outside the 
city, and have sent in 25 or 30 English prisoners 
who have been consigned to the galleys ; and if they 
could only do the same by all those who are really 
fighting us, whilst feigning to be our friends, they 
might man more galleys than are to be found in all 
Christendom this day, for those who have shown 
their colours during the last three days, and that 
without a blush, are simply infinite, nor is there any 
wonder that Dom Antonio has attempted this enter- 
prise, owing to the promises held out to him ; for 
from the moment he disembarked, he has been 
supplied with abundance of provisions, 1 whilst not a 
man has offered us his services. All the aldermen 
of the city are against us but two, the rest are all in 
hiding, and some even have supplied Dom Antonio's 
troops, with as little shamefacedness as if they had 
come from England with him. In this quarter of 
the city there is not a man left. Some have fled 
across the river, some are hidden, some have joined 
Dom Antonio. The troops under the four colonels 
publicly declare they will not fight. Dom Antonio 
was certain the moment he appeared the city would 
rise, and on this account we are in great alarm and 
have passed a very bad night. God help us ! " 

But the English did not sleep tranquilly either. 
In the first hours of the morning of the 25th of May 

1 This is more likely to be true than the assertion of my 
Portuguese that Antonio could get nothing to eat. The great 
body of the people were unquestionably in his favour, but had 
no leaders and would not fi°ht. 



60 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

Don Garcia Bravo, with 500 Spanish troops from 
Oporto, arrived in Lisbon. They were hungry, 
ragged, and weary, but they were eager to meet 
the foe, and barely gave themselves time to snatch 
a hurried meal before sallying from the gate of San 
Anton and up the hill to the quarters of Colonel 
Brett in the farm of Andres Soares. Another 
force at the same time came from the gate of Santa 
Catalina and forced Brett's trenches from that side. 
The long rows of windows of the monastery of San 
Roque on the hill were lined by Spanish musketeers, 
who kept up a deadly fire on the English, whilst 
two of the great guns of the castle were brought to 
bear upon one exposed side of the invaders' camp. 
The attack was made before dawn, and Brett had 
hardly time to muster his men in the darkness and 
confusion, when a cannon-shot from the walls laid 
him low. Captain Carsey and Captain Carr were 
mortally wounded, and 200 other officers and men 
slain. The rest of the English forces were aroused, 
and came to the rescue under Colonel Lane and 
Colonel Medkirk, and " put them to a sodain fowle 
retreate, insomuch as the Earle of Essex had the 
chase of them even to the gates of the High towne, 
wherein they left behind them many of their best 
commanders." A body of Spanish horse, sallying 
from the gates of San Anton to support their com- 
rades, met the latter in full retreat in a narrow lane, 
and unwillingly trampled them down ; thus adding 
to the confusion, which was completed by a flank 
charge upon the struggling mass by Yorke's cavalry. 
The English chronicler claims that the Spanish loss 
tripled ours, but my diarists say that they had 
only twenty-five killed and forty wounded, and the 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 61 

Portuguese tries to account for the heavy loss of 
wounded by accusing the English of using poisoned 
bullets. The next day the English tried to get in 
through the monastery, but they found the city fore- 
warned and on the alert, although the monks had 
done their best for them. The day after they 
bribed a Portuguese captain in charge of the wall 
at the nearest point to the river to let them pass 
round at low tide, but the spies told the Archduke, 
and the English found their ally replaced by a 
Spaniard with a strong force, who sent them flying- 
back again. And so three days passed in constant 
skirmishes, whilst N orris was chafing and helpless 
without. The fatal mistake he had made in leaving- 
the fleet was now apparent. The time, too, they 
had lost at Corunna was irreparable. Fernando de 
Toledo was approaching with relief, and the first 
dismay in Spain had now given way to desperate 
energy. The loss of men in the English camp 
from sickness and wounds was terrible, supplies 
and munitions were desperately short, there was 
no medical aid or transport for the sick and dis- 
abled, whilst the Portuguese in Lisbon, from whom 
everything had been hoped, still made no sign. 

Dom Antonio still put a brave face on the matter, 
but his heart was sinking. For the first two days 
he had lodged in the rear of the English camp, 
outside Santa Catalina, but on the third, says my 
Portuguese diarist, he began to fear for his safety, 
and, wearied of low fare and the sound of musketry, 
sought refuge in the house of a Portuguese gentle- 
man on the road to Cascaes. But he was repulsed 
and barely escaped capture, and thereafter could but 
cling desperately to the English force. In vain he 



62 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

looked now for the general rising in his favour, for 
the promised nobles who never came, and hour by- 
hour the prospect darkened. The Earl of Essex, 
young, inexperienced, hot-headed, was for assault- 
ing all sorts of impossible places with pike and 
musket, but N orris knew better, and sadly acknow- 
ledged to himself that the expedition had failed. 

Drake, with the fleet, had in the meanwhile 
reached Cascaes with everything he could lay hands 
on in the form of prizes. He had cast anchor on 
the very day twelvemonth that the great Armada 
had first sailed out of Lisbon, and the townspeople 
of the capital were full of portents which they saw 
in this coincidence. Every one in Lisbon by this 
time feared that he would sail up the river and 
enter the harbour ; and such was the dread of his 
name that if he had done so he might have turned 
the tide of victory. But his advice had been 
rejected, and he would not venture under the guns 
of the forts with an under-manned fleet and no 
soldiers. So he remained at Cascaes and left 
N orris to get out of the hobble as best he could. 
When he arrived he found the town almost aban- 
doned, for the citizens had fled in terror at his very 
name. My Portuguese says that Cardenas, the 
commander of the fortress, "a great gentleman," 
was deceived by a monk (or, as he says, the devil 
in disguise of one) into the belief that Lisbon had 
fallen, and he accordingly gave up the fortress, and 
himself took to flight. The Castilian and the Eng- 
lishman tell the story somewhat differently, and say 
that Cardenas was an adherent of Dom Antonio, 
and stipulated that a show of compulsion should 
be used before he surrendered the fortress. The 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 63 

result in any case was the same to him, for the 
" great gentleman's " head soon afterwards adorned 
one of the Archduke's poles on the quay at Lisbon. 

Drake had therefore established himself without 
difficulty at Cascaes, and patiently awaited the result 
of the land attack on Lisbon. 

If the English outside the walls of the capital 
were in a bad way, the small force of steadfast 
Spaniards inside were not much better. They 
knew that the Portuguese citizens around them 
were hourly watching for an opportunity to cut 
their throats and let in the native pretender. Panics 
of treason and treachery were of hourly occurrence, 
and on several occasions only the coolness of the 
Cardinal-Archduke averted disaster. Every day 
men of the best blood of Portugal, often taken from 
the immediate surrounding of the Archduke, were 
seized for assumed treason, the policy being to 
deprive the disaffected populace of native leaders. 
To further terrorise the citizens, and prevent them 
from plucking up heart to open the gates, a great 
review of all the Spanish troops was held in an 
open space where the enemy could see as well as 
the wavering townfolk. My Spanish diarist says, 
"With the sun flashing on shining morions and the 
brave show of arms and men all were convinced, 
friends and enemies alike that the success of our 
cause was certain." 

Boldness and firmness won the day. The next 
morning Norris called his colonels together to seek 
their advice and consult with Dom Antonio. He 
said that as the besieged stood firm and the popu- 
lace made no move, the English force must have 
artillery and munitions if they were to succeed, and 



64 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

asked their opinion as to whether he should wait 
for Dom Antonio's forces, which came not, and 
meanwhile send a detachment to Cascaes for muni- 
tions, or raise the siege altogether. Many were 
for sending 3,000 men to Cascaes at once. They 
had given the enemy a good drubbing, they said, 
and they would sally no more ; but N orris had 
lost hope in Portuguese promises, and was not 
quite so contemptuous of the enemy as some of 
them, and he decided that he would wait only 
one day more for Dom Antonio's levies. If 3,000 
came in that night he would send a like number 
of English to Cascaes for the munitions, otherwise 
he would raise the siege and leave before daybreak. 
I n vain Antonio prayed for a few days' longer grace. 
In nine days all Portugal would acclaim him. 
Lisbon was wavering already, and would turn 
the scale. But all his prayers were in vain ; 
and before dawn the English army was mustered 
and ready for the march. Essex was disgusted 
at the turn things had taken, and went up to 
the principal gate (he and Williams being the 
last men to leave) and broke his lance against it, 
crying out that if there was any within who would 
come out and have a bout with him in honour of 
his mistress let him come, and he gave them all the 
lie to their teeth. And then he turned away and 
followed the army, no doubt much relieved in his 
mind. 

During the day that N orris was awaiting the 
arrival of Dom Antonio's troops the English had 
not left their trenches, and the defenders feared 
that some deep design lay behind this. Were they 
mining, or was Drake sending up some heavy 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 65 

guns ? they thought. So when the dawn of the 
27th of May showed that the main body of the 
English was already on its way to Cascaes, Count de 
Fuentes still doubted whether it was not all a feint 
to draw him out from the shelter of his walls, 
and peremptorily refused permission to Count Villa 
Dorta to follow them up and engage them. The 
way of the retreating force lay along the shore, 
but to avoid the fire of the galleys which followed 
their movements they chose the rough by-paths 
where possible. And so, all undisciplined, sick, 
and starving, they wandered and struggled on as 
best they could, four hundred at least of stragglers 
and sick being killed or captured by Villa Dorta, 
who hung upon the rear, notwithstanding his chiefs 
prohibition. Later in the day Fuentes so far con- 
quered his suspicion as to lead his army out to 
Viera, half-way to Cascaes, but he had barely 
sighted the enemy than some rumour or suspicion 
reached him of an intended rising in Lisbon during 
his absence, and he hurried back again to the city. 
My Portuguese diarist ridicules the suggestion of 
such a danger as unworthy of any sensible man ; but 
the utter futility of the English and Portuguese 
proceedings from the first was such as well might 
excuse Fuentes for thinking that some deeper 
design must surely lay behind. The suspicion of 
the Portuguese on the part of the Spaniards at this 
time is illustrated by an anecdote given by the 
Portuguese diarist. Alvaro Souza, the captain of 
Philip's Portuguese guard, with five companions, 
accompanied Sancho Bravo, who took out a force to 
harry the English on their way to Cascaes. Souza 
straggled and was captured by Spanish soldiers, 

6 



66 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

who did not know him. They were near the 
castle of Sao Gian at the mouth of Lisbon harbour 
and knowing that Pero Venegas, the commandant, 
was a friend of his father, Souza sent a messenger to 
him begging him to answer for his loyalty. Vene- 
gas declined to reply, and Souza was lead off under 
arrest. On the way he met the famous Alvaro 
de Bazan going to his galleys. He was a friend, 
and Souza appealed to him to stand by him and 
his companions, " but he answered coldly that he 
knew him not, nor was this a time to recognise 
any one." He had, he said, recently answered 
for some Portuguese fidalgos in the palace, and 
a few hours afterwards they were arrested for 
treason. 

Fifteen weary miles over rough ground, and with 
Villa Dorta's troops harassing their flank and rear, 
the English managed to cover during the day, and 
at last, late in the evening, they marched into 
Cascaes. 1 We may well imagine that the meeting 
between Drake and Norris was not very cordial. 
The officers threw the whole blame for failure upon 
Drake for not coming up the river to support them 
before Lisbon ; the sailors, on the other hand, saying 
that the march overland was against Drake's advice, 
and that his ships, without men-at-arms to defend 
them and work the guns, would have been at 
the mercy of the enemy. At all events, it was 

1 If the Earl of Essex was rash and headstrong, he was 
also chivalrous. Pricket (or Wingfield) says : " Hee for 
money hired men to carrie sick and hurt upon pikes (for 
want of waggons) and hee (whose true virtue and nobilitie, 
as it dooth in all other his actions appear so did it very much 
in this) threw his owne stuffe, I mean apparell and neces- 
saries from his owne carriages, and let them be left by the 
way, to put hurt and sick men upon them in this march." 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 67 

clear they had failed in two of the objects of 
the voyage — namely, to burn the King of Spain's 
ships and restore Dom Antonio ; and one other 
only remained to be attempted, which was to take 
the Azores. 

I have already said that the raising of the siege of 
Lisbon took the defenders by surprise. They fully 
believed it to be an attempt to draw the Spanish 
troops out of the town in order that the citizens 
might rise and massacre the few Spaniards left. 
So certain were they of this that an unfortunate 
Portuguese noble — Count Redondo — who arrived 
that day and went to pay his respects to the 
Archduke, was immediately seized and beheaded 
pour encourager les autres. As soon as they saw 
the English had really gone, Count de Fuentes with 
his six or seven thousand men again made a recon- 
naissance almost to the English position at Cascaes, 
and finding the invaders well entrenched, with the 
fleet behind them, decided that it would be too risky 
to attack them, and hastened back again to Lisbon. 
News of the nearness of the Spaniards was brought in 
by some friars, of whom great numbers hung about 
Dom Antonio's quarters, and Norris and Essex each 
promised the messengers a hundred crowns if they 
found the enemy in the place reported, as they 
were spoiling for a fight in the open before em- 
barking. But Fuentes had gone to Lisbon, and 
the friars lost their reward. Norris, however, still 
eager, sent a page who spoke French, and a 
trumpeter, post-haste to Lisbon, with a challenge 
to Fuentes and his army to come into the open 
and fight. The opportunity was too good for 
Essex to miss, so he too sent a cartel by the page 



68 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

on his own account, giving every one the lie in a 
general way and offering to fight anybody in single 
combat. The messenger came back again without 
an answer, only that the Spaniards had threatened 
to hang him for bringing such vapouring insolence 
to them ; but the Spaniard tells the story in 
another way, less honourably for himself. He says, 
whilst the messengers were being entertained " as 
if they were great gentlemen " at breakfast by some 
of the captains who spoke French, the letters (which 
they had said could only be opened by the Arch- 
duke's permission) were surreptitiously steamed, 
read, and re-sealed, and handed back again as 
if unopened, with the reply that his Highness would 
not allow them to be opened. So Norris and Essex 
had their bravado for nothing, and went without 
their fight. 

In Lisbon the common people were as disturbed 
as ever, doubtless feeling that their chance of free- 
dom was slipping away from them, and alarms 
were constantly raised that the English were re- 
turning. But Spanish reinforcements were arriving 
now. The Duke of Braganza, head of the Por- 
tuguese nobility, arrived in royal state with a great 
body of retainers to help the Archduke, and all hope 
for Dom Antonio gradually ebbed away. 

The English commanders in Cascaes began now 
to think it high time to put themselves right with 
the angry Queen, who continued to send furious 
messages about their disobedience and about Essex 
and Sir Roger Williams. On the 2nd of June 
they wrote from Cascaes a full account of all that 
had happened in the best light they could devise, 
and saying they knew not what to do unless 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 69 

supplies came at once from England. Everybody 
was terribly seasick, they said, and well-nigh 
starving. Seeing that no more provisions could 
be expected, they wrote, on the 5th of June, that 
they had decided to go to St. Michaels ; and then, 
for the first time, they confessed that Essex was 
with them. They had met him, they said, to their 
great surprise, off Cape Finisterra, but could not 
send him home before, as they could not spare 
the Swiftsure ; but still no word about Sir Roger 
Williams. 1 

If Drake could not or would not burn the Spanish 
fleet on this occasion, he was always a splendid hand 
at plundering merchantmen, and during the six days 
that his fleet lay before Cascaes he scoured the sea 
for miles round in search of prizes, taking as many 
as forty German hulks loaded with Spanish mer- 
chandise. Into these prizes the men from the 
Dutch flyboats were transhipped, and the Dutch 
captains sent off without being paid their freights, 
glad, no doubt, to get away from such company 
on any terms. 

In the meanwhile Lisbon was gradually settling 
down. People who had been hiding in churches 
and cellars for the last ten days crept out, nearly 
all under the impression that the Spaniards had 
all been murdered, and that King Antonio had 
come to his own again. Dire was their disappoint- 

1 Essex started for England on the 16th of June, two days 
after his brother, on receipt of letters direct from the Queen, 
brought by a ship with stores from England. Williams was 
very desirous of accompanying him, but the generals refused to 
let him go, as they doubtless wished him to have the benefit 
of the favourite's mollifying influence with the Queen for 
some weeks before he arrived in England. 



70 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 

ment when they found that they were not the 
only people who had skulked in hiding, and that 
none of all the city had dared to strike the blow 
that would have made Portugal free again. So 
they patiently bent their neck to the yoke and 
cheered his Highness the Archduke at the top of 
their voices as he went in state to the cathedral 
to hear a solemn Te Deum of victory. 

The Spaniards did their best to follow up the 
enemy. The ships in the Tagus were fitted out to 
watch Cascaes and follow the English fleet, doing all 
the damage they could, and Don Pedro de Guzman 
was sent to cut off the English garrison left at Peniche. 
They urged the horses, says the Spanish diarist, 
until they were ready to drop, but arrived too late to 
stop the embarkation, except of about 200 men, 
who were put to death. 

On the 8th of June the English fleet set sail, 
pursued and harassed by the galleys from Lisbon 
in nearly a dead calm. Three of our ships were 
taken or sunk and one burned, by her captain, 
Minshaw, after a desperate resistance. A wind 
sprang up, however, and the Spanish galleys were 
left behind ; but soon the fleet got scattered, the 
men died, and were thrown overboard by the hundred 
from scurvy, starvation, and wounds ; but, notwith- 
standing all, after sailing ostensibly for the Azores, 
Drake turned back again and, picking up twenty- 
five of his ships which had been separated from 
him, sailed up the bay and attacked Vigo. He 
had only 2,000 men fit to fight : sickness and priva- 
tion had thinned them down to that, but with those 
few men, finding Vigo deserted, the English burnt 
and wasted the town and all the villages around. 



THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589. 71 

" A verie pleasant rich valley but wee burnt it all, 
houses and corne, so as the countrey was spoyled 
seven or eight miles in length." Then they decided 
to drop down to the isle of Bayona, and there put 
the pick of the men and stores on twenty of the best 
ships for Drake to take to the Azores, whilst the 
rest returned to England. But for some reason 
Drake broke the agreement and passed Bayona 
without even calling, and the thirty ships that were 
awaiting him there were left to their fate. Beset 
with tempest and pestilence, without a commander, 
it was decided by those on board to make the best 
of their way to England, in terrible distress as they 
were for provisions and water. After ten days' 
voyage they arrived at Plymouth on the 2nd of 
July, and found that Drake had already arrived 
there with the Queen's ships, having abandoned 
his voyage to the Azores. Most of the remaining 
ships had sought other ports in preference, in order 
to sell their prizes without having to share the 
proceeds with others. 

Such of the soldiers as came to Plymouth were 
sent grumbling home with five shillings each for 
their wages and the arms they bore. The English 
chronicler thinks that this was " verie good pay, 
considering they were victualled all the time." Such, 
however, was not the opinion of the unfortunate 
men themselves, who had not been allowed to loot 
as much as they thought fit in Portugal. They 
said that if they had been permitted to march 
as through an enemy's country, they would have 
come back the richest army that ever returned to 
England. Not more than 5,000 of them ever came 
home ; but their story was so dismal a one that 



72 THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589., 

all England rang with reprobation of the bad 
management and parsimony that had brought the 
expedition to so inglorious a conclusion. 

The first and third objects of the expedition — 
namely, the burning of the Spanish fleet and the 
capture of St. Michaels — were never even attempted, 
but the second object was very nearly being at- 
tained, and the restoration of Dom Antonio, prac- 
tically as a vassal of England, might have been 
effected a dozen times over if the Portuguese in 
Lisbon had not been an utterly terrified set of 
poltroons. On various occasions, when Count de 
Fuentes and his troops were outside, a few dozen 
daring" men mio-ht have seized the gates and have 
turned the tide in Antonio's favour. It was not 
to be, however, and the poor King wandered a 
poverty-stricken fugitive yet for a few years before 
he died, but his desperate struggle for sovereignty 
ended with the ignominious failure of the English 
attempt to avenge a great national injury by a 
joint-stock enterprise. 




JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 






JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 



In a slumberous street in old Madrid, called anciently 
the Calle de Cantaranas, but now inappropriately 
named after Lope de Vega, there stands a venerable 
convent of barefooted Trinitarian nuns. The for- 
tress-like red walls with the tiny grated windows 
looking upon the street, the quaint, sad tranquillity 
which hangs around the place, are only such as 
mark hundreds of other like retreats in Madrid and 
elsewhere ; and yet to this particular convent many 
reverent steps are bent from all quarters of the 
earth, for here lie the bones of the " maimed one of 
Lepanto," the author of " Don Quixote." He died 
only a few yards away, in his house in the Calle de 
Leon, and was quietly laid to rest in the convent, 
where one of his own daughters was a nun. The 
very fact of his burial there was almost forgotten — 
was indeed for many years disputed, until proved 
beyond possibility of doubt not long since — and 
when the fury for destroying religious foundations 
seized the rulers of Madrid after the revolution of 
!, the convent was marked down for destruction 



76 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

like so many others of its kind. And destroyed it 
would have been but for the pious zeal of the good 
" sententon," Mesonero Romanos, most beloved of 
Madrid antiquarians, who woke up the Academy of 
History, and brought such pressure to bear upon the 
Government as to save the sepulchre of Cervantes 
from profanation for all future time, and thus enabled 
the great author, after he had lain in his grave 
for two and a half centuries, to repay his debt to the 
Trinitarian fathers who rescued him from his galling 
slavery in the hands of the infidel. A stone tablet 
is now fixed in the wall of the convent setting 
forth the fact of his sepulture there in 1616, and the 
foundation of the community a few years previously 
by Dona Juana Gaitan, daughter of General Julian 
Romero. The name of the latter awakens no 
responsive echoes in Spanish minds. I have before 
me, indeed, a recently published Spanish historical 
work which ascribes his very existence to a wrong 
period. With the exception of a few particulars of 
his later life given in a local history of Cuenca by 
Father Mufioz, no Spanish writer has ever been at 
the trouble of tracing what little may be known of 
his stirring career. And yet the man in his day 
was the very prototype of those indomitable adven- 
turers, lusting for blood and gold, who, the sword in 
one hand and the cross in the other, hunted down 
to death the Indians of one hemisphere and the 
" heretics " of the other. Keen, cruel, Alba had no 
more ruthless instrument for his fell work than 
" Captain Julian," upon whom and Sancho de 
Avila the hatred of the persecuted Flemings was 
mainly concentrated. In the course of my some- 
what out-of-the-track studies I have found the 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 77 

name of Julian Romero constantly cropping up, and 
so many personal traits of him have appeared, that 
by carefully piecing them together a more complete 
account may be formed of the life and character of 
this typical swashbuckler than of, perhaps, any of 
his fellows. His life, too, offers some interest to 
Englishmen, for he swaggered and ruffled in Lon- 
don many a time and oft, and was one of those 
Spanish mercenaries who, in the reigns of Henry 
VIII. and Edward VI., fought so bravely against 
the French and Scots and quelled by their ferocity 
the risino-s of Kett in Norfolk and Arundell in the 
West Country. Practically nothing whatever was 
known of the lives — hardly indeed the existence — 
of the Spanish mercenaries in England until the 
recent publication of the anonymous " Spanish 
Chronicle of Henry VIII.," l which I now attribute 
to Antonio de Guaras, a leading Spanish merchant 
in London, whom I know to have been on close 
terms of intimacy with the Spanish soldiers, and 
particularly with Julian Romero, whose early ad- 
ventures in England are evidently related at first 
hand in the Chronicle. 

Of all the turbulent soldiers of fortune who quar- 
relled, intrigued, and triumphed in England, and 
whose adventures are so minutely told in the 
Chronicle, only one was heard of in after life. 
The general, Sir Peter Gamboa, was murdered 
with Captain Sir Alonso de Villa Sirga in St. 
Sepulchre's churchyard, hard by Newgate, one 
wet winter's night in 1551, by Captain Guevara, 
who was incontinently hanged in Smithfield. Sir 

1 "Chronicle of Henry VIII.," Edited by Martin A. S. 
Hume. London, 1889. 



78 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

Pero Negro died of the sweating sickness in one of 
the crowded lanes of old London city. Juan de 
Haro was killed by the English for attempted 
desertion with his company to the French enemy 
before Boulogne ; others fell in the Flemish wars, 
and only the rash and boastful " Captain Julian " 
lived to become Alba's trusted henchman, and to 
hand his name down to the execration of genera- 
tions of Flemings as one of the prime movers of 
the " Spanish Fury " in Antwerp. So great was 
the fame of his ferocity that the panic mongers, who 
were for ever sending to Elizabeth and Cecil intel- 
ligence of the dreadful vengeance which was to fall 
upon England at the hands of King Philip, could 
invent nothing more terror-striking than their con- 
stantly repeated dread that Julian Romero was to 
swoop down upon the coast and serve English Pro- 
testants in the same way as he had treated those of 
the Netherlands. He had, indeed, as will be shown 
in his own words at various periods of his life — now 
for the first time brought together — all the vices and 
virtues of his class and time. Vain and boastful, 
bigoted and cruel, he was nevertheless true to his 
salt, faithful, brave, and steadfast ; of that stern, 
self-sacrificing stuff by which alone empires may be 
won or despotism defended. He was born at Hue- 
lamo, in the province of Cuenca, of very humble folk, 
for even when he was in high command and on 
terms of close intimacy with nobles and ministers, 
he was never given the nobiliary address of Don, 
which was enjoyed by the most remote and out-at- 
elbows representative of the hidalgo class. He was 
not much of a scholar either, for his signature which 
exists at Simancas is the only part of his letters in 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 79 

his own hand, and is painfully traced in great bold 
straight lines, like a row of halberds. 

In the winter of 1534 every village in Spain 
resounded with the drum-beat of the recruiters, 
who were seeking soldiers for the Emperor's 
great expedition against the Moors, which was 
to start from Barcelona in the spring. Spanish 
hearts were all aflame with wondrous stories of 
fortune and adventure. The excitement, the free- 
dom, the idleness, and the possible gains of a 
soldier's life had seized upon the imagination of 
Spanish youth ; and the turbulent spirit of war- 
like adventure in far countries was, for the next 
century at least, to be the dominant note of the 
national character. Julian must have been a mere 
boy, but he joined the standard, so he wrote 
forty years afterwards, at Christmas, 1534, as a foot- 
soldier, and, with a pike on his shoulder, started on 
his life of adventure. There was no one to record 
the doings and sufferings of the humble man-at-arms 
in those stirring days, and beyond the fact that he 
drifted from Spain to Tunis, from Tunis to Italy, 
and thence to Flanders and France, always in the 
midst of the fighting in the Emperor's wars, nothing 
is known for the next ten years of Julian Romero's 
service. In the beginning of 1544 Henry VIII. 
had arranged to enter into alliance with the Em- 
peror to jointly attack the King of France, and the 
probability is that if they had together marched 
upon Paris promptly, they would have had France 
at their mercy. But other counsels prevailed, and, 
whilst Charles operated in Picardy and French 
Flanders, Henry sent the Duke of Norfolk and his 
brilliant son, Surrey, with an army of 15,000 men, 



80 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

to besiege Montreuil. The King's brother-in-law, 
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, at the same time 
with a large force "sat down before" Boulogne, 
and, on the 14th of July, great Harry himself 
landed at his good town of Calais to take the 
supreme command of his army before Boulogne. 
He was accompanied by a brilliant train of courtiers 
and soldiers, and took with him as his chief military 
adviser a great Spanish noble, Beltran de la Cueva, 
third Duke of Alburquerque, whose important share 
in the reduction of the town has been almost 
entirely ignored by English historians. Besides the 
200 Spanish soldiers who followed the Duke, there 
were already three Spanish captains in Henry's 
service, each with a company of his countrymen, to 
the aggregate number of about 260 men, all of them 
seasoned veterans in the Continental wars ; and 
these, together with the less experienced English 
levies, succeeded in capturing the town of Boulogne 
on the 15th of September. It appears that a breach 
had been made in the walls three weeks before, and 
the Spaniards begged Henry to let them take the 
place by assault. He told them that he would rather 
waste 10,000 pounds of powder than that a single 
one of his Spaniards should be sacrificed, "where- 
upon they blushed for mere shame." But as usual 
Henry had his own way, and the town surrendered ; 
" the Frenchmen," says Wriothesley, " departing 
out of the towne with as much goodes as they might 
carye, both men and women, besyde that the waggons 
caryed ; and the King his Majestie entered the said 
towne the 18th September with greate tryumphe, and 
the 20th day a solempne procession was kept with Te 
Detmi songe for the Victory of the King his Majestie 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 81 

and many fyers made in the citye and in every part 
of the realme. The last day of September the King 
his Majestie landed at Dover at midnight." The 
reason for Henry's hurried return was his desire to 
retain all the credit for his victory without waiting 
for the probable reverse. Charles V. had come to 
terms with the French, and when he had sent word 
to his English ally that he was negotiating, Henry 
arrogantly said that the Emperor might make peace 
if he pleased, but he, Henry, would suit himself in 
the matter. But when he found the whole French 
army turned against him he hurriedly raised the 
siege of Montreuil, put all his forces into Boulogne 
under Lord Grey, and got back to England as fast 
as he could, whilst his laurels were yet green. All 
through the next year the French siege of Boulogne 
went on, the three companies of Spanish mercen- 
aries, steady old soldiers as they were, being the 
mainstay of the defence. They complained bitterly 
of the raw Englishmen's habit of killing the 
prisoners instead of holding them to ransom, and on 
one occasion were near mutiny because their 
prisoners were murdered. " How now," said Cap- 
tain Salablanca to Lord Grey, " do you think we 
are in the King's service for the wretched four 
ducats a month we earn ? Not so my lord ; we 
serve with the hope of taking prisoners and getting 
ransom. Your men have even now killed a gentle- 
man of mine for whom I should have got at least 
five or six thousand crowns ransom." Whatever 
their object may have been in serving the schis- 
matic king, Henry thought very highly of them, 
and when in the year 1545 he was about to send 
Warwick to attack the Scots, an opportunity 

7 



82 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

occurred for him to engage some more, he gladly 
seized it. Charles V. had disbanded a large pro- 
portion of his army after the peace of Crespi was 
concluded, and had embarked them for Spain with 
orders that, under pain of death, they were to take 
service with no other sovereign. A ship with 800 
or 1,000 of these disbanded soldiers on their way 
home anchored in the Downs, and the warriors 
being, we are told, " already tired of the sea," they 
sent an offer of their services to the King of 
England. The captain of the vessel, however, 
would not wait for the answer to reach them, but 
on his putting into Plymouth the whole of them landed 
and entered the English service. They were promptly 
sent off to Warwick's army in Scotland under an ex- 
perienced old soldier of their number called Pedro 
Gamboa, who was made colonel, with power to 
create his own captains. Julian Romero landed 
with this force in some subordinate capacity, but 
on his arrival in Scotland received his first English 
commission as captain, from Gamboa. This was 
in the summer of 1545, and when the winter came 
the troops were put into quarters, whilst Gamboa 
and his newly fledged captains came to London to 
air their finery at Henry's Court. The King made 
much of them, and in the early spring of 1546, a 
temporary peace having been patched up with 
Scotland, ordered them to take their companies to 
the French coast between Calais and Boulogne, 
where the Eno-lish were erectingr a fort. Whilst 
Gamboa, Julian Romero, and the other new cap- 
tains, had been ruffling at Court, receiving grants 
and attentions from the King, the three or four old 
Spanish commanders with their companies, who had 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 83 

been long in Henry's service, had been enduring 
hard fare and rough service, and obtaining but little 
loot at Boulogne ; so that on the arrival in France 
of the new men, straight from Court favour, a very 
bitter feeling was shown towards them. One of 
the old captains, Cristobal Mora, deserted bodily 
with his men to the enemy, and another one, Juan 
de Haro, was killed in attempting to do so. It 
may therefore well be supposed that when peace 
was made in June, 1546, and the compatriots met 
again on neutral ground, there was a good deal 
of thumb-biting and recrimination. Mora was 
flouted in the streets by his fellow-countrymen 
for having disgraced the mercenary creed by 
deserting his paymaster before the enemy ; whilst 
he retorted by accusing Gamboa and his friends 
of disobeying their natural sovereign the Emperor 
in taking service under an excommunicated 
heretic. Events came to a head at last by the 
deserting captain, Cristobal de Mora, sending a 
challenge from Montreuil to Colonel Gamboa in 
Calais in July. Either for some reason of disparity 
of age or rank between the two, or else out of mere 
hot-headed combativeness on the part of Julian 
Romero, the latter accepted the challenge for his 
chief, and has left upon record an extremely minute 
description of the fight. Sir Henry Knyvett went 
off to obtain the King of England's permission, 
which was gladly given, and " a thousand broad 
angels sent to Julian to put himself in order withal." 
The King of France ordered the erection of lists 
at Montreuil, where the wage of battle should be 
decided, and when all was ready Julian Romero, in 
the full pomp of war, started on his road from Calais 



84 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

to Mon-treuil, attended by a great company of 
English and Spanish gentlemen to see the fun. 
The following is the account given by Julian's 
friend. 

" Well when they arrived in France and the 
day being come the seconds and umpires saw that 
each one had equal arms. They were to fight on 
horseback and each one had a sword, and both 
rapiers and daggers, and their corselets were open 
at the back with great holes big enough for two 
fists to go in on both pieces. This scheme was in- 
vented by the French because Mora had one of the 
best and quickest horses in France, and as they 
were not to fight with the lance, Mora thought, with 
the fleetness of his horse, he would be able to 
wound Julian in the back with his rapier, and so 
vanquish him. 

" When the umpires had seen the arms were 
equal they gave the signal for the trumpets to 
sound, and the opponents at once closed with one 
another, and, at the first blows with the swords, 
Julian's sword fell from his hands and he seized his 
rapier. Mora was not backward and threw away 
his sword for his rapier ; and, as he had such an 
active horse, he went circling round Julian so as 
to wound him in the back. But Julian was no 
sluggard, and when Mora saw he could not do this, 
he decided to kill Julian's horse, which he did with 
a thrust in the chest ; and a few moments afterwards 
it fell to the ground. At that moment Julian, think- 
ing to do the same for Mora, attacked him with that 
object ; but Mora was too quick with his horse for 
Julian to wound it, and the rapier fell from Julian's 
hand, almost at the moment that his horse dropped 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 85 

under him ; and as he felt his horse was going to 
fall he leapt quickly off his back and Mora had not 
time to ride him down, thanks to the horse which 
was on the ground. Julian to escape being ridden 
down, and finding himself armed only with his 
da£2:er, was forced to shield himself behind his 
fallen horse, whilst Mora went round and round 
and Julian dodged behind the horse. This went on 
for more than three hours, and at last Mora cried 
out, ' Surrender, Julian ! I do not want to kill thee ! ' 
but Julian did not answer a word. There was 
hardly an hour of daylight left, and Julian would be 
vanquished at sunset. And, as he saw that Mora 
was strutting about waiting for the sun to go down, 
Julian kept wide awake and, watching his oppor- 
tunity, dropped on one knee behind his prostrate 
horse and with his dagger cut the straps of his 
spurs, which he threw away. Seeing his rapier not 
far from him he made a dash to regain it, and 
succeeded before Mora could ride him down. 

" The gentleman who was acting as Julian's 
second, seeing how things were going, was very 
downcast and wished he never had come and said 
to the Spanish captains : ' Gentlemen, our man is 
losing.' Then said Captain Cristobal Diaz, l What, 
sir ! the day is not yet done and I still hope to God 
that Julian will come off the victor.' ' Do you not 
see, sir,' said the other, 'that Mora is only flourish- 
ing about waiting for sundown ? ' As they were 
chatting thus, they saw how Julian had snatched 
up his rapier again, and how Mora was attacking 
him. Julian had just time to deal a thrust at 
Mora's horse, which, feeling itself wounded began 
to prance, and its rider, fearing that it would fall 



86 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

with him underneath it, determined to get a short 
distance away and dismount. Julian, however, being 
on foot and light, without his spurs, went running 
after him, and when he was trying to dismount, 
embraced him in such a manner as to bring him to 
the ground, and with his dagger cut the ties of his 
helmet. Mora then surrendered at once, and Julian 
took his arm, and with the sword of his enemy in 
his hand, led him three times round the field that 
all might see how he had surrendered." 

For this not very chivalrous victory Julian was 
overwhelmed with honours, the French king, we 
are told, casting a gold chain round his neck worth 
more than 700 crowns, whilst the Dauphin gave 
him a surcoat stamped with gold, worth more than 
the King's chain ; and King Henry of England, 
when the Spanish officers returned to England, 
extended special favour to Julian Romero, upon 
whom he settled a life pension of 600 ducats, which 
was a larger sum than any of his fellows, except 
Colonel Gamboa, who got a thousand. In any 
case it was only paid for a few years. 

If the behaviour of the combatants in the duel 
lacked the chivalry we are apt to expect, still less 
magnanimous was the treatment of the Spanish 
officers towards their companies. When the peace 
was concluded and Julian's duel fought, orders 
came from England that the troops were to be 
dismissed, and the mercenary captains were to 
repair to London. The latter portion of this order 
was concealed from the soldiers, who were told 
by Colonel Gamboa that, as they were all dis- 
missed from the English service, they would march 
together and offer their services elsewhere. He 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 87 

thereupon led them across the frontier into the 
Emperor's Flemish dominions, and then with the 
captains gave the men the slip, and left them 
to shift for themselves. The captains hung about 
the Court in London all the summer and autumn 
(1546), quarrelling, gaming, and swaggering, and 
Julian Romero, less refined and more hot-headed 
than the rest, well nigh got into serious trouble. 
His friend who tells the story, evidently at first 
hand, says that he had been "showing off" very 
much more than his means or his pay would 
warrant, and he had borrowed money to such an 
extent that he hardly dared to walk out publicly. 
One of his pressing creditors was a Milanese called 
Baptist Baron, who after much trouble managed 
to get him arrested for a debt of 200 ducats. 
Julian was furious with rage at the idea of being 
haled off to jail, and persuaded the catchpole who 
had him in custody to take him to Colonel Gamboa's 
house, in hope that he would pay the money. 

" No sooner had he arrived there, than he launched 
into loud complaints and began to say unreasonable 
things, amongst others, that anybody who would 
serve heretics must be a great big knave ; and he 
swore that he would have no more of it, but would 
go with only a pike on his shoulder and four ducats 
(a month) pay to serve elsewhere ; and he said 
a good many other things that had much better 
have been omitted, for certainly no good came of 
them." 

Gamboa made himself responsible for the money, 
but Julian's loose talk about heretics was dangerous, 
and the colonel, whose subsequent behaviour to the 
other captains shows him to have been a bad-hearted 



88 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

man, seems to have done nothing to shield his 
subordinate from the consequences of his indis- 
cretion. Gamboa was himself accused at first of 
treason by the Privy Council, for allowing such talk 
in his house without punishment. He declared that 
he was deaf, and did not hear what Julian had said, 
"which," says the narrator (almost certainly the 
"merchant " Guaras), " was the truth, as he was in 
his chamber at the time." "The Council presently 
sent for Julian and rated him soundly, to which Julian 
replied : ' Gentlemen, I have said nothing for which 
I should be so maltreated.' ' Well,' they answered, 
' you said this, that, and the other, and there are 
witnesses who heard you.' But Julian denied it, 
and they called a merchant who was present in the 
house of the colonel and had heard everything that 
had passed. Before this merchant went before the 
Council, Gamboa spoke to him and begged him to 
accuse Julian as much as he could, so that they 
should take away his pay from him ; but the mer- 
chant, seeing the malice of Gamboa, said, ' Senor 
Gamboa, I am no mischief-maker to do harm where 
I can do good,' and he would not speak to Gamboa 
any more. The lords then sent for the merchant ; 
all the captains as well as Julian being present, and, 
as the merchant was going in, Gamboa said to him 
aloud, so that all should hear, ' Senor, I beseech 
you to favour Julian as much as you can ; for good 
or evil to him depends upon what you say.' Good 
God ! how artfully Gamboa said that, when not 
three hours before he had begged him earnestly to 
accuse him and get his income taken away. But 
Julian and the other captains thought that Gamboa 
was favourable to him." The "merchant's" evidence 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 89 

does not seem to have palliated the case against 
Julian, but that perhaps was because "they made 
him place his hands upon the Gospels, and he swore 
to tell the truth." He said that Julian was in a rage 
at being arrested, and shouted out some coarse ex- 
pressions about the King and Council not caring 
much for him, and that he would rather serve else- 
where for four ducats than here for a mint of money. 
"Then," said the lords, "didst thou not hear him 
say that he would come with a pike on his shoulder 
to fisfht against such heretics ? " To which the mer- 
chant replied that the soldiers were making so 
much noise that he did not hear well what was said. 
The end of the matter was that, just as the Council 
were going to sentence Julian to punishment and 
dismissal, Paget put in a good word for him, and got 
him off with a severe wigging and a threat to punish 
him severely if he let his tongue run too loosely 
again; "whereupon Julian made no answer but 
made a very low bow, and then they told him to go, 
and if any one was sorry he was not dismissed it 
was Gamboa." 

A few weeks after this the trouble with Scotland 
broke out again, and the captains were ordered to 
raise a fresh force of Spanish men-at-arms. This 
was not easily done at short notice, and Julian and 
his fellow Spanish officers frankly said that they 
could not sret together men who would do them 
credit in the time specified, and they had no con- 
fidence in Burgundians and others who could be 
quickly recruited. Gamboa, however, made no diffi- 
culty about it ; but to the great disgust of the 
Spaniards raised a regiment of Burgundians, whom 
he led to Scotland to take part in the siege of 



90 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

Haddington. On Gamboa's coming south for the 
winter this regiment, under its ensign, Perez, de- 
serted en masse to the enemy, for which desertion 
Perez was hanged when the place was captured ; 
but in the meanwhile the circumstance still further 
widened the breach between Gamboa and the other 
Spanish officers. The King died at the beginning 
of the year 1547, and by the time Somerset was 
leaving London for his short and triumphant cam- 
paign in Scotland, plenty of Spanish and Italian 
mercenaries had joined the standards of our captains. 
They confessedly turned the tide of victory to the 
English side at the battle of Pinkie by a dashing- 
flank charge under Gamboa, and a few days after- 
wards, at the burning of Leith, they again greatly 
distinguished themselves. Julian, of course, was in 
the thick of it, and his friend asserts that he was 
made an English knight after Pinkie. I can find no 
confirmation of this, although the English authorities 
show that after the burning of Leith the Protector 
knighted, amongst others, on the 28th of September, 
1547, Sir Peter Gamboa, Pero Negro, Alonso de 
Villa Sirga, and Cristobal Diaz. 

Julian remained in Scotland during the campaigns 
of 1548-9, and took part in the relief of Hadding- 
ton ; but Gamboa in the latter year was dismissed 
in consequence of his unpopularity with the other 
Spaniards and an accusation of peculation made 
against him. Of Julian Romero we hear in all parts. 
He and Pero Negro were in charge at Broughty 
Ferry, near Dundee, and a few of their men made 
a dash one day at a French general who was stroll- 
ing a short distance from his lines, and captured him 
in the face of his own troops before he could be 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 91 

rescued. The French complained especially of 
Julian's and Pero Negro's celerity of movement, by 
which they were able to give them the slip, en- 
cumbered as the French were by the unscientific 
methods of their Scotch allies. 1 Warwick had the 
help of a considerable body of Spaniards, and almost 
certainly of Julian Romero, in his defeat of Rett's 
rebellion in the autumn of 1549; certainly in the 
winter of that year when Warwick, with the prestige 
of his victories upon him, thought he was strong 
enough to strike a final blow at the Protector, 
Julian was one of the foreign captains he took with 
him to overawe Somerset at his levee, and to demand 
of him in their name rich rewards for their services 
in Scotland and elsewhere. As soon as Warwick 
had got rid of Somerset he changed his tone. 
England was no longer a fit place for Catholics. 
The King, Edward VI., was known to be dying, and 
the next heiress was a papist and half a Spaniard, 
against whom the Spanish officers could not be 
trusted to fight in favour of Northumberland's 
Protestant protege'e. So they were dismissed, those 
that were left of them, and are thenceforward 
swallowed up in the unfathomable abyss of the dead 
past ; all except Julian Romero, who was reserved 
for greater thing's. 

There was no lack of demand for the services 
of such men, for the Emperor, his natural sove- 
reign, was at war with the French once more, and 
less than two years after he left England we hear 
of Romero again. Sir John Mason, writing to 

1 Jean de Beauge, " Histoire de la guerre d'Ecosse," 1548-9. 
Maitland Club. 



92 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

the English Council on the 7th of July, 1554, 1 
reports that Julian with five standards of Spaniards 
and others was holding out against the French in 
the castle of Dinant. He is, Sir John says, unlikely 
to be taken ; but if he be, all the Liege country 
must soon follow. A week afterwards Dr. Wotton 
writes to Queen Mary 2 an account of the fall of 
Dinant, and says : " The town and castle of Dinant 
have been taken, the former surrendered by com- 
position without loss of goods, the latter, wherein 
were some Spaniards with Captain Julian, who 
formerly served in England, made a gallant resist- 
ance, but at last held parliament and yielded, the 
soldiers departing with their swords by their side." 
The Spanish historian Sandoval blames Romero 
for his capture and the loss of Dinant, which he 
attributes to his want of prudence in going out to 
parley, " but rarely indeed do both valour and pru- 
dence reside in one person, although this captain 
afterwards proved that he possessed both qualities ; 
for he became one of the most famous soldiers of 
our time." Romero seems first to have attracted 
general public notice by his bravery and dash at 
the great battle of St. Quintin in 1557, and in the 
contemporary poem called " La Araucana " he is 
mentioned as one of the most conspicuous heroes 
of the storming of the town, in command of a regi- 
ment of Spaniards, Germans, and Walloons. For 
the ten years that followed the peace of 1558 the 
centre of war was changed, and the almost constant 
struggles between Philip II. and the Turks kept 
Italy and Sicily full of Spanish soldiers. Romero 

1 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 

2 Ibid. 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 93 

during most of the time was quartered in the 
Milanese, whilst not before the enemy ; and in the 
meanwhile had been promoted to the rank of 
Maestre de Campo (colonel), but in 1567 Philip 
took the fatal decision of grappling in a duel to the 
death with a closer and more dangerous power than 
the Turk — namely, that of Protestantism and 
national freedom in his own Netherlands dominions. 
The humble remonstrance of the Flemish nobles 
and Egmont's visit to Madrid had convinced the 
stealthy bigot that, if he insisted upon ruling his 
Flemish dominions according to Spanish methods, 
he could only do it by the ruthless power of the 
sword. His kindly and popular sister, Margaret 
of Parma, Flemish to the heart as she was, had 
already shown signs of sympathy with the demands 
of her countrymen, and was an unfit instrument 
for Philip's new plans. There was no one but hard- 
hearted old Alba who could be trusted to carry 
them out to the bitter end with the needful 
catlike cruelty. So early in 1567 the Spanish 
troops from Milan and Naples, the Italians from 
Savoy and Parma, the veterans who for years had 
been fighting the infidel in the Mediterranean, were 
set in motion to join the Duke of Alba. Julian 
Romero was at the time in command of the regi- 
ment of Sicily stationed in Milan under the fourth 
Duke of Alburquerque, the son of Henry VIII's 
military dry-nurse at Boulogne ; and he, like the 
rest of them, led his men to Brussels. The Flemish 
nobles were lulled into a feeling of false security. 
Kindly messages came from Philip in Madrid. He 
himself would come and set all things right. Alba 
and his son flattered the shallow Egmont, and 



94 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

courted the distrustful Horn, whose brother 
Montigny was kept at Madrid by specious excuses, 
and the smiling mask was kept over Alba's grim 
face till all was ready. 

Egmont had readily accepted that fateful invi- 
tation to dinner for the 9th of September, and 
even Horn had been persuaded to leave the 
security of his own country for the same purpose, 
when late on the night of the 8th a Spanish 
officer of apparently high rank came secretly 
to his (Egmont's) house in disguise and signifi- 
cantly warned him to escape at once, whilst there 
was yet time. To the last day of her life the 
Countess of Eo-mont was confident that this officer 
was Julian Romero ; J but, whoever he was, Egmont 
neglected the warning and went to the feast next 
day. Sancho de Avila posted troops in all the 
streets leading to the house, to the wonder of the 
townsfolk, and on the stairs of the Hotel itself 
were stationed 200 stalwart harquebussiers under 
Colonel Julian Romero, who himself stood at the 
door of the room in which the treacherous arrest 
was to be effected. 2 At the oiven moment Sancho 
de Avila laid hands on Egmont, whilst Romero 
stood by and overawed any attempt of the 
Flemings at resistance. 

At 11 o'clock in the morning of the 6th of 
June of the following year, the day that the 
Counts were to die, Julian it was who went to 
Egmont's chamber to conduct him to the scaffold 
on the great square in Brussels. He wished to tie 

1 Motley. 

2 " Documentos ineditos para la historia de Espana," vol. 
lxxv. 






JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 95 

the Count's hands, but the noble refused to be thus 
degraded. During Eo-mont's last few moments he 
turned in bitter anguish to Julian Romero and 
asked him earnestly whether the sentence was 
irrevocable, and whether a pardon might not, even 
now, be granted to him. Romero appeared to 
think that the Count's courage was failing him, and 
only answered by a contemptuous shrug of his shoul- 
ders and a negative sign ; whereupon Egmont gnashed 
his teeth in silent rage and went to his death. 1 

Alba's severity for the moment paralysed all 
resistance on land, and only those " sea beggars," 
who afterwards secured the independence of the 
Netherlands, kept alive the tradition of Flemish 
patriotism. Some of the Spanish troops could 
therefore be dispensed with, particularly as Philip's 
treasury was empty of money to pay them, and 
many found their way back to Spain again. 
Amongst these was Julian Romero, who had 
married a wife of his own province a few years 
before (1565), and yearned for a spell of family 
joys far from war's alarms. His time of rest was but 
a short one. He was marked out now conspicuously 
as one of the most unscrupulous of Alba's officers, 
who could be depended upon in any emergency, and 
who was fanatically loyal to his sovereign and the 
faith for which he was fighting. An instance of 
this is given by Don Bernardino de Mendoza. 2 
Certain soldiers under that officer were in treaty to 
enter into the service of the King of France — not 
a very great offence, one would think, in the eyes of 
Julian, who had himself served the King of England 

1 Motley. 

2 "ComentariosdelasGuerrasdelospaisesbajos." Mendoza. 



96 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

— and Alba, desirous of appearing impartial, had 
decided that the three ringleaders should be tried 
by their own comrades, appointing Julian as presi- 
dent of the tribunal. He sentenced them all to be 
shot, and on the decision being submitted to Alba, 
the latter made a long speech in praise of such 
severity, and highly commended Romero for his 
inflexibility. Philip was contemplating a job that 
called for such a man as this. He had been driven 
to desperation by Elizabeth's protection of the rebel 
Flemish privateers, and her seizure of his treasure, 
and had effusively welcomed Thomas Stukeley 
when he arrived in Madrid in 1570 with proposals 
for the invasion of Ireland and the raising of the 
country in favour of Philip. This would, at all 
events, keep Elizabeth's hands full, and Philip, 
being misled as to Stukeley's standing and influence, 
treated him with great honour. He had a large 
pension granted to him and a palace to reside in ; 
he was made a Spanish knight, and Julian Romero, 
amongst others, was invited to confer with him as 
to the plans for the subjugation of Ireland. It was 
decided that Romero should take command of the 
expedition, if it were sent, and English spies soon 
gfot hold of the news and communicated it to the 
Queen. Philip was not long in finding out that 
Stukeley was a mere windbag, and very coolly 
got rid of him as soon as possible ; but for many 
months after the Spanish king had abandoned the 
idea, when indeed he was in such straits as hardly 
to be able to hold his own, the dreaded name of 
Julian Romero was in everybody's mouth as the 
coming avenger of Philip's grievances against the 
English queen and her ministers. 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 97 

One zealous spy named Reynolds Digby writes 
to Cecil from St. Jean de Luz on December 28, 
1570, telling him of "the subtle and devilish prac- 
tices against his country," and saying that the Duke 
of Medina Celi and Julian Romero had already 
embarked "a great store of ordnance for battery 
and field, great numbers of copper ovens, baskets, 
mattocks, and other stores, with 100 mule loads of 
money, the object being to go to Flanders, ship 
Alba and his army, and sail to Scotland for the 
purpose of attacking it and seizing the King." 1 
There was no truth in it, but on the 25th of 
January, 1 571, another spy named Hogan, living 
in Madrid, wrote saying that Romero was going 
to Ireland with 6,000 soldiers. 2 Walsingham, in 
Paris, reports the same news as being brought by 
French agents from Madrid, and the Spanish 
ambassador in England, evidently believed it, 
although he pretended not to do so, in his inter- 
views with the English ministers. 3 Elizabeth her- 
self was much alarmed, and wrote to Walsingham,4 
telling him to see the Spanish ambassador in Paris 
(Frances de Alava), and say " that she cannot 
believe the news sent her that there is an intention 
of sending Julian Romero or such like with a 
number of soldiers to Ireland to follow some vain 
device of these rebels, and she much wonders that 
the King should give credit to such a man as 
Stukeley, about whom no good can be said." The 
haughty Don Frances ("the proudest man I ever 

1 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 

2 Ibid. 

3 Calendar of State Papers (Elizabeth), Spanish, vol. ii. 

4 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 

8 



98 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

met," says Walsingham) told him that he had never 
heard of Stukeley, "and as for any attempts by 
Julian Romero to be done in Ireland, they were 
no Spaniards who had that enterprise in hand " — 
which was quite true, for Philip never intended to 
send a Spanish force, and indeed when, years 
after, he did aid an expedition, he ordered that all 
the commanders should be Italians. 1 

Philip wanted Romero for more important work 
than aiding Stukeley 's hairbrained schemes. Alba 
was now face to face with a people in arms in 
Holland and Zealand, under one of the greatest men 
of his age, the Prince of Orange. Cruel severity had 
only goaded the Netherlanders to desperation, and 
Alba, old and ill, felt that his method had failed. 
He was begging to be relieved from the conduct of 
the war, and the Duke of Medina Celi was sent to 
replace him, with Julian Romero in command of the 
reinforcements which accompanied him. Medina 
Celi himself never took possession of his vice- 
royalty, for Alba was too jealous to give it up, now 
that his health was somewhat better, and the fresh 
troops sent enabled him to act more vigorously ; 
but Julian Romero got to work as soon as he set 
foot on shore. He had been partially disabled by 
a severe wound in the leg, but landed his men at 
the Sluys and at once joined Don Fadrique, Alba's 
son, before Mons ; and on the 17th of July, 1572, 
only a few weeks after he landed, he led the first 
charge of the battle in which Fadrique beat the 
French Huguenot force who were trying to relieve 
Mons. Fadrique wrote to his father from the 
battlefield in enthusiastic praise of Julian, whom 

1 Calendar of State Papers (Elizabeth), Spanish, vol. ii. 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 99 

he coupled with the famous Italian General Chapin 
Vitelli, who, although severely wounded, behaved 
with great bravery. Unfortunately most of 
Genlis' troops that were captured were murdered 
in cold blood afterwards, it is to be feared with 
Julian Romero's full acquiescence, if nothing worse. 
He was now an important personage since his 
sojourn at Philip's Court, and in a letter to the King's 
secretary, Zayas, dated before Mons, August 23, 
1572, 1 writes a full account of the state of affairs, 
in the wording of which there are now and again 
signs that he was still a bluff soldier. 

"Holland," he says, "looks as ugly as ever, 
Friesland no better, and Zealand much worse, but 
I look upon it all as nothing by the side of this 
Mons business, upon which I have set my heart. 
If we can only stop up this hole in the frontier 
the rest is only so much air ; although we shall 
sweat if we are to camp before Mons all the winter, 
for we shall have to fight on skates." Julian's fears 
were groundless. The grim news of St. Bartholo- 
mew convinced the citizens of Mons that no help could 
reach them from the French Protestants, and only 
a month afterwards— the 22nd of September, 1572 
— Romero wrote a long account to Zayas of the 
surrender of the devoted town, which "he says we 
were very fortunate to get by surrender, for no 
troops but Spaniards could have taken it, so strong 
is it, and of Spaniards we have very few." 

Then, swift and relentless as a thunderbolt, 

came Alba's vengeance on the southern provinces 

of Flanders, hopeless of succour now either from 

Orange or the French. Every town was to 

1 " Simancas Documentos ineditos," vol. Ixxv. 



ioo JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

support a Spanish garrison or be put to the 
sword, and of all the cruel instruments for the 
work none were so much in tune with the master- 
mind as was Julian Romero. The rebel garrisons 
of most of the little towns had fled, there was 
but slight resistance, and Fadrique, on his march 
from Zutphen to Amsterdam in November, sum- 
moned the town of Naarden to admit the Spanish 
troops into the place. Some demur was made to 
this, but a few days afterwards the principal men 
of the town were sent after Fadrique, afraid of 
their own boldness, to discuss terms for submission. 
They were refused an interview, and told that a 
force had already been ordered to Naarden to com- 
pel compliance. The citizens, panic-stricken at 
the news, sent a deputation to offer complete un- 
conditional submission, but before they could reach 
Fadrique's headquarters at Bussem they met Julian 
Romero on his way to Naarden, who told them 
that he had full authority to treat. Arrived at the 
town, he demanded the keys, which were sur- 
rendered to him on his solemn promise that the 
lives and properties of the townsfolk should be 
respected. He gave (says Hoofd, the historian) 
his hand thrice as a pledge of this, and no written 
pledge was exacted of him. From what we know 
of Julian Romero's temper we can well imagine 
this. Romero and his 600 harquebussiers entered 
the town and were hospitably received. A great 
feast was spread to do them honour at Burgo- 
master Gerrit's house. When the banquet was 
finished Romero collected his men in the great 
square and summoned the citizens to a conference 
in the town hall. The bell y^g, and the citizens 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 101 

came, all unsuspecting, to hear the conditions im- 
posed upon them ; but when they were met, to the 
number of about six hundred, in the hall, Romero 
gave a signal at the door and his Spaniards fired a 
volley upon the closely packed crowd of unarmed 
men. Thenceforward the little town was a shambles ; 
men, women, and children were all murdered 
amidst scenes of the most heartrending atrocity, 
and even infants were made sport of, being cast 
by the pikemen from spear to spear. The Burgo- 
master was roasted until he gave up all his fortune 
as ransom, and was then hanged at his own door- 
post in the presence of Romero and Don Fadrique, 
who had arrived the day after the massacre. 
Motley, who takes his account from Hoofd, has 
not added anything to the horror of the story, and 
it is confirmed by Alba himself in a letter to the 
King, saying, "They cut the throats of them all, 
soldiers and townspeople alike, without leaving a 
single soul alive." Strada says that this massacre 
had an entirely opposite effect to that expected. 
It aroused such fury and hate all over Flanders and 
Holland as to double the difficulty of Alba's task. 
Strada makes as light of it as possible, but even he 
says, "It really seems as if the vengeance wrought 
exceeded the fault. All the inhabitants alike, inno- 
cent and guilty, were killed, the houses burnt, the 
walls razed, and it looked more like a crime than a 
punishment." : 

But Holland and Zealand were made of different 

stuff to South Flanders, and the massacre of Naar- 

den only caused Haarlem to be more obstinate in 

its determination to hold out at any cost. Fadrique 

1 Strada, " De Bello Belgico." 



102 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

and his army were before it in the bitter winter of 
1572, and it became necessary for him to ensure 
an open passage between him and Utrecht, whence 
he drew his supplies. This was interfered with by 
a rebel fort on the outskirts of Haarlem, near the 
opposite bank of the Sparen to that upon which 
the road lay. This fort was flanked on two sides 
by water — on the one side, where the river was 
narrow, the defences were impregnable ; whilst on 
the other flank, where the stream opened out and 
was considered impassable, the fort was otherwise 
undefended. Early in December spies reported to 
Fadrique that at certain states of the tide the broad 
water might be forded and the fort attacked by 
surprise on its undefended side. His letter to his 
father detailing how this was done is still at 
Simancas. x He says that at daybreak he sent 
Julian Romero with 400 picked harquebussiers to 
attempt the task. Count Bossu and other ex- 
perienced soldiers had said that it was impossible, 
but Romero insisted upon attempting it. The 
water reached above the knees of the men, 
and the ice had to be broken at every step ; the 
ford was very narrow, and a false step precipitated 
the armed men into deep water. The men in 
the fort discovered them and opened fire, and 
for a full hour they thus skirmished in the frozen 
river, when they found that a rebel force from 
the town, equal to their own, had crossed the 
river on the ice higher up, and were attacking 
them from their own bank, so that they were 
between two fires. Romero drew his men out 
of the river, charged the new force and drove 
1 " Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv. 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 103 

them back over the ice again. But in their 
flight they showed him the way across the ice as 
well, and how by that road the undefended side 
of the fort might be reached. With incredible 
dash he crossed after them and stormed the fort 
on that side, carried it with pike and musket only, 
and, as Fadrique tells the Duke, cut the throat of 
every man who did not escape by flight. Fadrique 
is quite enthusiastic about Romero's share in the 
affair. The "heretics," he says, showed surprising 
bravery, and the fort was of enormous strength — 
"the best I ever saw." " I thought we were fight- 
ing beasts, but I find we have to do with men." 
" Colonel Julian has carried himself in this action 
as splendidly as he always does and is as eager as 
ever to serve his Majesty. He marched for a good 
league and half with the water over his knees, 
skirmishing with the fort, before the Haarlem force 
came. Just think of it, your Excellency ; marching 
like this with such a leg as Julian's ! I can assure 
you that a better soldier than he for dash and enter- 
prise never came from our country. Pray thank 
him warmly for he richly deserves it." Only a 
few days later Julian was once more to the fore. 
Lumay, Count de la Mark, made an attempt to 
relieve Haarlem with a large force, but was beaten 
by the Spaniards, "Julian with his regiment," we 
are told by an anonymous eyewitness, 1 "leading 
the attack in front of every one." Encouraged by 
this victory, the Spaniards a week afterwards — the 
20th of December, 1572 — attempted to take the 
place by storm, but were unsuccessful. Julian was 
standing on a trench directing operations when a 
1 " Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv. 



104 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

musket-shot destroyed one of his eyes, but even 
that did not put him hors de combat for long, for 
he writes to the Duke's secretary, Albernoz, on 
the 13th of the next month (January, 1573) from 
Amsterdam : " I have been impatiently expecting 
I Han's arrival, in order that I might go to the 
front, but if he comes not I am determined I will 
wait no longer, but will set out to-morrow ; for I see 
that things are now going to begin in real earnest. 
I am pretty well, but not so well as I want to be to 
serve Don Fadrique ; but I will do so with all my 
poor strength, standing or falling. He has sent me 
word that I must go and lodge in his quarters or 
he will burn mine down over my head. I will obey 
him in this as in all things, and although I know 
full well I shall not lack for dainties there, I will 
not spare you from sending me the other box of 
marmalade you promised me, as the one you sent 
is half gone already." 

For the next six months each step in the terrible 
siege of Haarlem is related in the letters from Don 
Fadrique, Gaspar de Robles, and Romero himself. 
Wherever fighting was going on Colonel Julian was 
always in the front rank, and we hear of him creep- 
ing forward from month to month nearer to the 
devoted city as death and famine make it weaker. 
Romero's own letter to Alba of the 25th of May, 
1573, 1 gives the best account I have read of the 
incidents of the siege from the Spanish point of 
view, although neither that nor any other of the 
series I have mentioned appears ever to have been 
utilised by historians. When at last, in July, 1575, 
the famished heroes in the city surrendered, Julian 

1 " Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv. 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 105 

Romero was deputed to accompany Count Bossu 
to the wood where the submission was to be 
arranged, and himself to hold the town gate that 
no soul should issue therefrom without due warrant. 

Of the cruel massacre of the starving people 
which followed Julian Romero does not boast, but 
it may be not uncharitably assumed that he played 
his usual sympathetic part in it. Certain it is that 
no sooner was it over than Colonel Julian, with an 
army of 4,000 men, commenced his fell march over 
Holland. Mendoza I says : " Julian entered by 
the Dunes as far as the Hague, taking Catwyk, 
Walkemburg, Wassenaer, Naeldwyk, St. Geradique, 
Squelpewyk Noortwyk, Vlaerdingen, the fort of 
Mansendus, where he cut the throats of St. Alde- 
gonde and 600 men, Mlinster, Gravesande, &c." 
And then he went towards Leyden, which was 
being besieged by Valdes. Morgan, writing to 
Lord Burleigh from Delft 2 on the 12th of Novem- 
ber, 1575, represents the Dutch burghers as com- 
pletely cowed for the moment by Romero's ferocity. 
He says : "Julian with his 4,000 men is entrenched 
half-way between the Hague and Delft, cutting off 
all communication between the latter place and 
Leyden." 

But by this time Alba felt that cruelty had 
failed to crush Orange and the Zealanders, sup- 
ported as they were by England and helped by 
the German princes ; and sated as even he was of 
blood, he determined to give up the struggle and 
allow another policy to be tried. Romero was tired 
of it too, and wished to retire with his chief. Alba 

1 " Comentario de las Guerras de los paises bajos." 

2 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 



106 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

himself wrote to the King from Brussels on the 15th 
of December, 1573. * "Colonel Julian Romero has 
served here in the way your Majesty has been 
informed. He had returned here from Holland, 
determined to go to Spain and beseech your 
Majesty to allow him to rest at home, seeing 
that he has served for 40 years. When your 
Majesty's letter for him had been handed to him 
and I had myself impressed upon him how much 
he would be missed here at the present juncture, 
he consented to send Captain Ulan to Spain on his 
private affairs, whilst he still remains in the service 
here. I pray your Majesty to take such measures 
for rewarding Julian's many services as they deserve. 
I can assure you that what he has done in this 
campaign alone places your Majesty under a deep 
obligation to him. He is one of the most useful 
men of his quality that I have ever known, and I 
shall warmly welcome any mark of favour your 
Majesty may confer upon him." 

Romero's own letter to the King to accompany 
this plainly tells how much the hard old soldier 
yearned for rest. "I have been," he says, "in 
your Majesty's service now in this guise for well- 
nigh forty years, without leaving it for a single 
hour ; my work in this campaign has been, as 
your Majesty knows, extremely hard, and as I 
have lost the full use of my legs, arms, and eyes, 
I besought the Duke to give me leave to go home, 
which he did. When I went to Brussels to take 
leave of him a letter was handed to me from your 
Majesty ordering me not to leave these States. I 
obey your Majesty's orders, but the Duke and the 
1 " Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv. 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 107 

Grand Commander (Requesens) have given me 
leave to send Captain Ulan to beg your Majesty 
personally to let me go and see my home again. 
I need greatly to go, as is proved by my asking to 
do so now, for otherwise I would not even go if I 
had leave. 

Philip was the most ungenerous and ungrateful 
of employers, and for reasons which presently will 
be stated it is doubtful whether Julian's devotion 
was rewarded as Alba recommended that it should 
be, notwithstanding a letter in the Record Office : 
from one of the many false Englishmen then in 
Spanish Flanders, written to a Captain Windebanke 
in Elizabeth's service. The writer was trying to 
get Windebanke to play the traitor, and deplores 
that so good a captain should be so scurvily re- 
warded by the Queen, whose penuriousness he com- 
pares with Philip's (entirely imaginary) liberality. 
" Captain Julian Romero," he says, "whom I knew 
a poor captain in Ireland, is now worth ,£2,000, 
and has a pension of a thousand ducats." The 
writer was probably false in his facts as he was in 
his patriotism, for I can find no record of Julian's 
ever having been in Ireland, and only a few months 
after the date of the letter we have his own word 
that he was almost in indigence. 

The new Viceroy, Requesens, was to try to do 
by conciliation what Alba had failed to effect by 
severity. It was time to adopt a new policy, for 
Southern Flanders was now nearly as disaffected 
as Holland, and Zealand was entirely in the 
hands of the Gueux. Its capital, Middleburg, 
was held by Mondragon and his Spaniards, but 
1 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 



108 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

he was closely beleaguered by the rebels and 
in the direst straits. Mondragon was one of 
the best and bravest of the commanders on the 
Spanish side, whose heroic relief of Tergoes still 
remains one of the brightest feats of war ever 
performed, he had informed Requesens that, un- 
less he were relieved with food and stores, he 
should be forced to lay down his sword and give 
up Middleburg to the despised " beggars of the 
sea " ; so the new Viceroy's first duty was to send 
aid to Middleburg and Ramua. Two fleets were 
fitted out for the purpose in January, 1574, one 
consisting of large ships under the famous Sancho 
de Avila was to go by the main Scheldt and the 
Hundt, rather for the purpose of diverting the rebel 
force than for any other action, whilst nine standards 
of soldiers under Romero, and a great quantity of 
stores, were to go in a fleet of seventy-two canal 
boats, barges, galliots, and crookstems, through the 
narrow channels by way of Bergen-op-Zoom to 
the besieged town. The naval commander was 
to have been De Beauvoir, with Glimes as second 
in command. The former fell ill, and the Viceroy 
gave the chief control to Romero, who protested 
that he was a soldier and not a sailor, but at 
last consented to take the command. 

The expedition began badly. Requesens came 
to the quay of Antwerp to see it depart ; Romero's 
flagship led the way, and as a salvo of honour 
was fired, a gun on one of the boats burst, and the 
craft sank with all hands. Then the leader looked 
behind and found several of his vessels lagging. 
Antwerp itself was riddled with disaffection, and the 
Flemish sailors had given him the slip, so the boats 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 109 

had to be left behind. Then Romero and his fleet 
dropped down the river and anchored near Bergen, 
opposite Romerswald, to await another tide, Re- 
quesens, the Viceroy, proceeding to the same place 
by road to witness the final departure of the expedi- 
tion from Bergen. At daybreak on the 21st the 
rebel fleet, under Boisot, Admiral of Flanders, was 
seen to be approaching them from the open water 
opposite. Romero's fleet was surrounded by shallows 
and sand-banks, and largely manned by Flemish 
sailors whose loyalty, to say the least of it, was 
doubtful, and de Glimes, seeing the danger, begged 
his chief not to fight. Cardinal Bentivoglio * says : 
" The Vice- Admiral would not have fought, know- 
ing the great disadvantage on his side. The enemy's 
ships were many more in number, but Romero, 
either because his valour blinded his judgment, or 
from his want of knowledge of maritime affairs, or 
perhaps because the risk was forced upon him by 
Mondragon's urgent need, insisted upon fighting." 
The disaster that followed is ascribed by Bentivoglio 
to treachery of Romero's Flemish sailors, but, be 
that as it may, de Glimes' ship first stranded, and 
others immediately followed, and, thus helpless, 
were exposed to a galling musketry fire. Captain 
Osorio with other ships went to the aid of de 
Glimes and immediately met with the same fate. 
Greek fire was thrown into the Spanish vessels, and 
many of them were burnt to the water's edge, the 
Viceroy the while standing on the dyke helplessly 
witnessing the destruction of his force. When de 
Glimes, the Vice-Admiral, had been killed, and his 
part of the fleet destroyed, the rebels, acquainted 
1 " Guerra di Fiandra." 



no JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

as they were with the intricate passages, came 
alongside of Romero's flagship, grappling with it and 
with its consorts. Boisot's decks towered high over 
the canal boats, and the crews shot down from their 
superior position until nearly all the Spaniards were 
killed, when at last a round shot crashed through 
the timbers of the flagship, and Romero, fearing she 
was foundering, jumped overboard on the land side 
with his few surviving comrades. He came up 
spluttering and floundering within a few feet of the 
Viceroy, who stood upon the bank. As he dragged 
himself up the dyke he blurted out with a voice as 
vigorous as when he was giving the command to 
charge, " I told your Excellency how it would 
be ! You knew I was no sailor but a foot 
soldier and nothing else. No more fleets for 
me ; if you gave me a hundred I should probably 
lose them all." Requesens gave a graceful and 
generous answer, but the blow was a heavy one for 
the Spanish power, for Middleburg and Ramua 
surrendered to the rebels, and henceforward for 
ever Zealand was lost to King Philip. 1 Seven 
hundred of the Spanish force were killed, as was 
Boisot, the Flemish admiral, and Romero's ship, with 
all his papers and instructions, fell into the hands 
of the enemy. 

Romero was sick at heart. Requesens' mild 
temporising looked to Alba's iron lieutenant like 
lamentable weakness. There was only one way for 
Julian to meet heresy and the assertion of inde- 

1 The account of this disaster is taken from three con- 
temporary accounts — Mendoza's " Comentarios de la Guerra 
de los paises bajos " ; Strada's " De Bello Belgico/' and 
Bentivoslio's " Guerra di Fiandra." 






JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER, in 

pendence, and that was by extermination. Philip 
apparently had sent him no rewards, or even thanks, 
for his staying after Alba left, and had simply 
ignored his prayer for leave to return home. This 
was nothing new, for the King always treated his 
most faithful servants thus, but bluff Julian probably 
did not know this at the time, and was bitterly dis- 
appointed. After his defeat at Bergen he busied 
himself for some months in planning fortifications 
and re-organising the forces, which Requesens had 
found in a state of almost open mutiny for want of 
pay. By the end of June his task was done, and 
affairs in South Flanders were lookino- much more 
tranquil. No answer came from Madrid to Julian, 
who, sick and mortified, counted the hours for the 
time when he might see his home again. In June 
he wrote an interesting letter to the Viceroy, which 
deserves to be repeated nearly in full. After recom- 
mending the names of five officers for the future 
command of the forces he says : J "I must now 
address you with my customary frankness and clear- 
ness, and disabuse your mind, for once and for all, 
of the idea that any offers or promises from his 
Majesty, or any one else, will make me waver in my 
determination to return home next September. 
Nothing but my own death shall stand in the way 
of this, so urgent is my need to go ; since my soul's 
health and the welfare of my wife and children 
depend upon it, and the least of these reasons would 
be sufficient to make me firm in my resolve. I have 
long wished to go but have deferred it because my 
services here were so much required. I very un- 
willingly consented to stay when the Duke of Alba 
1 " Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv. 



ii2 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

left ; with the sole object of being by your Excel- 
lency's side whilst you were new to your position. 
I have been well repaid by the pleasure of knowing 
you and would still serve you with all love and 
zeal, but the moment now has arrived beyond which 
I cannot, and will not, stay. You may judge whether 
I need go when I say that I have served his 
Majesty 40 years next Christmas without once 
resting from the wars and my duty. I have lost 
in the service an arm, a leg, an eye, and an ear ; and 
the rest of my person is so seared with wounds that 
I suffer incessantly. I have now just lost a dear 
son upon whom I built all my hopes — and with 
good reason as the whole army will bear witness. 
You will judge whether such troubles as these are 
not enough to break down my health and spirits. 
Moreover I married nine years ago, thinking that 
I might have some rest, but since then I have 
never been an entire year at home. I have spent 
during my service nearly all the money I had with 
my wife, and although I have a daughter at home, 
and one here of marriageable age, I can do nothing 
to help them ; except with the trifle still left of my 
wife's money. I can, moreover, see plainly that 
this is being exhausted by me at such a rate, that 
unless I can get home at once, both my wife and 
myself will have to end our days in the poor-house. 
You are so christian a prince that I feel sure you 
will not try to hinder my resolution, for, believe 
me, it is not for the purpose of exalting or selling 
myself at a higher price that I urge it. If when I 
have been home the King still thinks I may be 
useful, I will try with all my heart, but it must be 
in some place where I may set up my home and 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 113 

have my wife by my side, for without her, all the 
world shall not make me stir. I think I have 
already well deserved by my sufferings and long 
service any favours his Majesty has conferred upon 
me. 

To this affecting and dignified letter the Viceroy 
replied saying that he would no longer stand in the 
way. He had written four or five times already to 
the King, urging him to fitly reward Julian's great 
services, and had reason to believe that something 
would shortly be done, but he had again written in 
the most pressing terms begging the King not to 
neglect so good and true a servant. A day or two 
afterwards Romero again wrote to the Viceroy 
another manly letter, which shows how bitterly he 
felt the King's indifference to him. He says: 
" With reference to your Excellency's kindness in 
begging his Majesty to reward me, I am constrained 
to beseech that no further great effort should be 
made. I will endeavour to pass the few years left 
to me as decently as I can, and if I cannot have 
everything I desire I am already as reconciled to 
leave it all as one who has the candle in his hand. 
God is my witness that I have never served the 
King for lucre ; no, that has never been my target ! 
True it is that I am cut to the heart to see his 
Majesty extend his favours to others, who were 
suckling at the breast when I was already a veteran, 
whilst he forgets me, but this I lay to my ill luck 
and to God's will that I should remain a poor man. 
But naked I was born ; I have lived honourably 
and I care for naught else. Pray therefore, trouble 
yourself no further on my account. I trust before 
my departure hence God will settle the affairs of 

9 



ii4 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

these States. At this season of the year there is 
little stirring, and if when I have been home and 
set my house in order, your Excellency should 
remain in your present straits ; I pledge my word as 
a Christian to come and serve again with all my 
strength. If I were a batchelor and as hale as I 
used to be, you should see what I would do. 
Worcum, June 27, 1574." 

If Romero's desire of seeing his home again was 
fulfilled, as it probably was, his visit must have been 
of short duration, for in October of the next year 
he was commanding thirty standards of troops before 
Zerusee, and endeavoured to capture an island near 
Dortrecht, but was beaten by the Prince of Orange 
himself with the loss of 800 men. 1 

Early in the following year things had reached 
an acute stage. Requesens was dead, and Don 
Juan of Austria, his successor, had not arrived. 
The mercenaries in the Spanish service, unpaid 
and chafing at inaction, were in open mutiny, 
and were plundering and maltreating friends and 
foes indifferently to indemnify themselves. The 
Council of State, mostly Flemish and Walloon 
nobles, were profoundly divided, and already were 
doing their best to hold their own against the 
savage Spanish soldiery. Brussels was held by 
Walloon troops in the interests of the Council 
of State, the Spanish troops in the neighbour- 
hood being under the command of Romero. By 
the middle of March the Council were obliged 
to meet and devise some means of pacifying the 
mutineers by raising money to pay them, " with- 
out which many strange seditions must happen." 
1 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 115 

They agreed with Romero to pay certain soldiers 
forty crowns each, to satisfy them until the 
arrival of the new Governor, and then sent him 
to parley with the mutineers. Strada says they 
would not listen to him, but in any case most 
of his men fraternised with and joined them. 
On his return to Brussels he was again sent 
by the Council against the rebel Spaniards who 
had gone towards Maestri cht. English agents 
in Flanders l report that he had arranged a plot 
to be carried out in his absence. He had left 
200 of his men in Brussels, and the plan was 
for Count Barlemont, one of the Council, to deliver 
the keys of the city to them, in order that the muti- 
neers, and probably Romero with them, should 
enter the city and sack it. The plot was discovered, 
and Barlemont deprived of the keys, and after 
Romero had fruitlessly been to Maestricht, he found 
on his return to Brussels the citizens in a frenzy 
of rage against the Spaniards in consequence of the 
massacres at Alost and elsewhere by the mutineers. 
The infuriated Flemings tore to pieces a servant of 
Jerome Rodas, the leading Spanish councillor, and 
the latter, with Romero and Vargas, had to fly for 
their lives to the stronghold in the palace. Hence- 
forward the Flemish Council and the Spaniards 
were completely estranged. The Council proclaimed 
the mutineers rebels against the King, whilst Rodas 
assumed to be Philip's sole representative. 

Philip was in deep distress at the news. 2 Romero 
was to be warmly thanked, the Council must dis- 

1 Herll to Burleigh, Rogers to Walsingham, and Harise to 
Burleigh. Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 

2 Philip to Rodas. Calendar of State Papers (Foreign). 



n6 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

band their forces, money would be sent, Don Juan 
would soon arrive, and all would be settled. In the 
meantime, however, the forces of the Council were 
attacking the mutineers at Ghent, Maestricht, Alost, 
and elsewhere, and the Spanish commanders, Sancho 
de Avila, Romero, Vargas, &c, whilst ostensibly 
condemning them, were constrained daily to side 
more with their fellow-countrymen. Romero at 
last escaped from Brussels and fortified himself at 
Lierre, where a considerable force gradually joined 
him. The Council sent word that they would 
attack him if he did not submit to their authority, 
but when they attempted to do so his force, with 
that of Vargas, routed the States troops. The 
massacre which followed is explained by Mendoza 
by the fact that the Spaniards were hot-headed 
youngsters, which they were not, but he is evidently 
ashamed of it. A large number of spectators, 
students from Louvain and others, had come out to 
see the fight. They were all slaughtered, as were 
soldiers and civilians, armed and unarmed, men and 
women, without quarter and without mercy, up to 
the very gates of Louvain. Thenceforward all hope 
of restraint was lost. The Spanish soldiery were 
so many bloodthirsty wild beasts, making no dis- 
tinction between Flemish friends or foes, and it was 
war to the knife on both sides. Romero's head- 
quarters were still at Lierre, although he kept up 
a close connection with the mutineers at Alost, and 
his men seem to have outdistanced others in their 
savagery, no attempt to moderate which appears to 
have been made by their chief. Savage Rodas 
himself got frightened in October, and wrote to the 
King that the Spanish soldiers were pillaging on 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 117 

all sides, and if some remedy were not sent soon 
from Spain, all would go to perdition. 1 

Wherever Romero had a chance of fighting the 
States forces he did so, and Mendoza gives par- 
ticulars of many brilliant skirmishes in which the 
Spaniards were successful, but which usually ended 
in an indiscriminate massacre of Flemings. Sancho 
de Avila in the Antwerp citadel the while was 
keeping up a close communication with the muti- 
neers at Alost, Ghent, and other places, whilst 
the citizens were collecting such forces of Walloons 
and German mercenaries as they could. Sancho 
at last was informed that unless he ceased to 
send aid to Alost he himself would be held as a 
rebel to the Kino-. This was a signal that he must 
either submit to the dictation of the despised 
Flemish Council or fight, and he chose the latter 
alternative. He sent out messengers on all sides 
for the Spaniards to concentrate in Antwerp, and 
soon Romero started out from Lierre with all his 
men. On his way he met the main body of mal- 
contents from Alost and greeted them with effusion. 
Vargas with his men joined them also, and on 
the 4th of November they all entered the citadel 
of Antwerp together. The townsmen and their 
troops had already begun to run up earthworks 
to defend themselves against the bloodthirsty 
marauders who had made a shambles of Alost, 
Maestricht, and wherever else they had gained the 
upper hand. The rich booty of Antwerp, and the 
thirst for blood, they knew would launch the greedy 
hawks from the citadel upon the panting quarry 

1 Rodas to Philip (intercepted). Calendar of State Papers 
(Foreign). 



n8 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

below, and they determined to sell their lives and 
property dearly. Hungry and tired as the Alost 
men were on their arrival at daybreak, no meal 
would they consume until, as they said, they could 
break their fast in Antwerp. Slaking their thirst 
and firing their brains only with wine, by eleven 
o'clock before noon they were ready for the struggle. 
Then with solemn prayer and blessing of banners 
as a preparation for their fell work, they swept down 
in three bodies to the town to the aggregate number 
of about 6,000 men. The scene that followed has 
often been described, and need not be repeated 
here. In a few hours the richest city in Christen- 
dom was a ravished corpse of its former self. 
Romero, with his stalwarts of Spaniards and Almains, 
entered the city by the St. George's gate and swept 
along the street of St. Michael, driving weak young 
Egmont before him into a church at the end, where 
the Count was taken. 

Everywhere the Walloons turned and fled 
before the Spaniards. The brave Champigny, 
Granvelle's brother, did his best heroically ; the 
townsmen, unused to arms, made what resistance 
they could, but the States troops were worse 
than useless, and butchery was the only order of 
the day. In the great square every house was 
occupied by Sancho de Avila's men, who kept 
up a fusilade upon the frightened crowds of un- 
armed people huddled together in the doorways. 
Soon the curling smoke showed that the rich stores 
of merchandise, the noble palaces of the merchant 
princes, and the lowly cottages of the artisans were 
alike doomed to wanton destruction. The Spaniards, 
drunk with blood, blind with rage, spared neither 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 119 

age, sex, nor faith ; and with one great gust of fury 
swept like a blight over the doomed city. When 
the blood-lust was partly sated, it was found that 
6,000 unarmed people at least had been slaughtered, 
and 6,000,000 ducats worth of property stolen, with 
as much again burnt. The States infantry had all 
fled or been killed. The Catholic Flemish nobles 
were scattered and lost, and the Spaniards had 
Antwerp beneath their talons. Strada says that 
the massacre and plunder were as much the work 
of the Walloons and Germans as of the Spaniards, 
and bears testimony to the efforts of the Spanish 
leaders to restrain the fury of their men, mentioning 
Sancho de Avila, Mondragon, and others as having 
exerted their influence to that end, but markedly 
omits the name of Romero. Rodas, writing- to the 
King a day after the fight, says the town was sacked 
against orders, and that Avila, Romero, and Vargas, 
used great diligence to stop plunder. " They 
deserve," he says, "well of his Majesty for the 
services they have rendered in this great victory." 
Dr. Wilson, who certainly was not prejudiced in 
favour of the Spaniards, says, on the other hand, 
in a letter to Walsingham of the 13th of November, 1 
that he fears the Spaniards much less than the 
English refugees, "who are said to have done the 
greatest murders and most horrible above all others, 
and all Englishmen are hated for their sake." 

Flemings of every faith were welded together 
now against the wreckers of their homes, and even 
those nobles who, through all the evil past had 
stood by Spain, the Perennots, the Croys, the 
Montmorencis, the Zweveghems, were at one with 
1 State Papers (Domestic). 



120 JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 

the Protestants of the North. Don Juan found 
himself, when he arrived, in face of a united 
people glowing with indignation, and determined 
to prevent the destruction of its liberties, strong 
enough now to force terms upon him. The first 
demand of the Flemings was that all Spaniards 
should withdraw from Flanders, and the second 
that Rodas, Avila, and Romero should lose their 
heads for their share in the massacres. To the first 
demand the Prince was forced to accede, with the 
second he fenced diplomatically ; and soon Romero 
was on the march at the head of his men going 
from Flanders to Italy with the curses of all 
Flemings following him. 

Don Juan could not brook for long the dicta- 
tion and exactions of the Council, he took the bit 
between his teeth, seized the citadel of Namur, 
defied them all to do their worst, and made up his 
mind to fight it out in spite of the King's 
orders. Then the veteran forces, by which Alba 
had crushed the Low Countries, the bloodthirsty 
savages who had ravished them before, were once 
more recalled from Italy, late in 1577. Romero 
was designated for the chief command of an army 
of 6,000 men which were to act subsequently under 
Alexander Farnese in Flanders. He was starting 
on his march from Cremona at the head of his force, 
when the war-worn old soldier, without a moment's 
warning, fell from his horse, dead. He breathed his 
last as he had lived, full-armed and harnessed for the 
fray, surrounded by the fierce soldiery he had led so 
often. Strada says his death caused the deepest 
grief, as he was looked upon as the mainstay of the 
new attempt to dominate the Flemings. Another 



JULIAN ROMERO— SWASHBUCKLER. 121 

contemporary historian, Cabrera de Cordova, wrote 
of him, "his loss caused profound sorrow by reason 
of the urgent need for his valour and experience, 
which had enabled him to rise from a common soldier 
to be a general, whilst his prowess and knowledge of 
war well deserved the last promotion to the rank in 
which he died, namely, that of commander-in-chief 
of great enterprises." 

For some years even after his death his name 
was used to threaten England with, and the 
presence of another younger Captain Julian with 
the Spanish auxiliaries to the Irish rebellion of 
1579-80 gave rise to many trembling rumours that 
the terrible Romero himself was there. 

But he is forgotten now, even in his own country ; 
the cause he fought for, the supremacy of Catholi- 
cism, has been beaten everywhere but in Spain, where 
stern intolerance, and indifference to personal suffer- 
ing still linger as things to be proud of. It has 
seemed to me, however, that the devotion, the 
valour, and the self-sacrifice of the rough soldier 
who rose to be " commander-in-chief of great enter- 
prises," dimmed though they be by cruel ferocity, 
might well be rescued in this gentler age from the 
oblivion in which they lay so long. 




THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 




PHILIP AND MARY. 

(After the fainting by Antonio MorJ 






THE COMING OF PHILIP THE 
PRUDENT.* 



It is somewhat curious that English historians, in 
describing an event fraught with such tremendous 
possibilities to Christianity as the coming of the 
Spanish prince to wed Mary of England, should 
have entirely overlooked a source of information 
which was more likely than any other to abound in 
interesting and trustworthy details of the voyage — 
I mean the contemporary narratives of Spaniards 
who accompanied Philip hither. So far as regards 
the splendid pageantry that marked the new con- 
sort's entrance into London the English records 
themselves leave nothing to be desired. Darnley's 
tutor, John Elder, in his letter to his pupil's uncle, 
the Bishop of Caithness, 2 descends to the minutest 
particulars, and is amply confirmed by the anony- 
mous Chronicle of Queen Mary in the Harleian 
manuscripts, whence John Stow derived his informa- 

1 The English Historical Review, April, 1892. 

2 This curious and rare tract was reprinted by the Camden 
Society, 1849, and is the groundwork of Foxe's and Hollings- 
hed's accounts of the events related therein. 



126 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

tion ; by Edward Underhyll, " the hot-gospeller" ; r 
and the letters of the French ambassador, Antoine de 
Noailles. 2 The ororg-eous ceremonies that attended 
the marriage in Winchester Cathedral are also suffi- 
ciently described by these and other authorities, as 
well as in the official account of the English heralds 
of the time, copied from the Book of Precedents of 
Ralph Brooke, York herald, and printed in Leland's 
"Collectanea," edit. 1774, and by the Camden 
Society, 1849 ; 3 but the accounts given by English 
historians of Philip's voyage and reception at 
Southampton appear to rest entirely upon a 
narrative of the Venetian, Baoardo, published in 
Venice in 1558, four years after the event, and 
the letters of Noailles to the King of France. 
Miss Strickland and the late Mr. Froude, both 
of whom draw upon Baoardo to a large extent 
for their local colour, quote him as an eyewitness 
of the scenes he describes. Whether he was so 
or not I do not know, although I have been 
unable to discover any evidence of his presence, 
but in any case the bitter animus against Philip 
shown in his narrative is so clear that it is unfair to 
accept his statements without ample confirmation. 
Such confirmation seems to have been sought, 



1 Edward Underhyll was one of the gentlemen pensioners, 
and his quaint narrative of the accession of Mary and the 
subsequent events, now amongst the Harleian manuscripts, 
was largely used by Strype and others. 

2 Ambassades de Noailles. Leyden, 1763. 

3 To these may be added the slight but interesting narra- 
tive existing in manuscript at Louvain, and printed by Tytler 
in his " Edward VI and Mar}'," and the letters of the Vene- 
tian ambassador in Flanders to the Doge and Senate, for 
which see Calendar of State Papers (Venetian) of the date in 
question. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 127 

by Mr. Froude at all events, in the letters of 
the French ambassador, and from this material, 
coupled with the fact that certain prudent measures 
of precaution were suggested by Simon Renard, 
the Emperor's ambassador, in his letters to his 
master, the historian paints his highly coloured 
picture of Philip as a sulky, seasick craven 
trembling at his very shadow, in momentary 
fear of poison, consummating a sacrifice from 
which his soul revolts. To justify this view 
Professor Froude depended mainly upon Noailles. 
It must, however, be remembered, first, that the 
French ambassador was not in a position to know 
the exact details of Philip's voyage and reception ; 
secondly, that he was the last person in the world to 
give a fair account of them ; thirdly, that the his- 
torian has gone beyond his authority, even such as 
it was ; and fourthly, that several witnesses of the 
events described, whose evidence has hitherto been 
ignored, entirely fail to confirm the view taken by 
Mr. Froude from Noailles and Baoardo. 

Throughout the whole negotiations that had 
preceded the arrangement of the marriage Noailles 
had been absurdly ill-informed and wide of the 
mark. 1 His letters to the King of France and 
the Constable teem with predictions and asser- 
tions which subsequent events proved to be quite 
wrong, and it is easy to see that for months 

1 He was equally at sea at the beginning of Mary's reign, 
when he vigorously aided Northumberland's conspiracy to 
place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, and repeatedly told his 
master that Mary's cause was an absolutely hopeless one. On 
the ignominious collapse of Dudley, Noailles excused his own 
want of prescience by saying that nothing but a direct miracle 
from heaven could have brought about such a change. 



128 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

previous to the marriage he was entirely hood- 
winked, and out of touch with trustworthy sources 
of information. In a letter to the French adviser 
of Mary of Lorraine in Scotland, M. d'Oysel, 
dated 29th of March, 1554, for instance, he 
speaks of the Earl of Bedford's departure for 
Spain as an accomplished fact, and has no doubt 
that he had already sailed from Plymouth to fetch 
the Prince. On May 18th, after ringing the 
changes upon this for nearly two months, he tells 
the King that the rumour runs that Bedford is to go 
shortly to Spain, but that the Prince will not come 
until the winter, whereas Philip had already left 
Valladolid at the time on his way to England. On 
the 31st of March Noailles is quite persuaded that 
Wyatt's life will be spared, and less than a fortnight 
later he describes his execution. On the 29th of 
March, again, he says that the Bishop of Norwich, 
the Queen's ambassador to the Emperor, had been 
summoned to perform the marriage, and was to be 
created Archbishop of York for the purpose. 
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, really performed 
the ceremony. Noailles again is quite sure that 
other Wyatts will arise, and that 50,000 men will be 
in arms to receive the Prince, and in April, after 
writing for weeks of the preparations for the arrival 
of Philip on the south coast and marriage at Win- 
chester, he believes it all to be a feint and that the 
Prince will suddenly appear and be married in Lon- 
don. On the 29th of the same month he is strongly 
of opinion that Sir James Crofts will be executed 
on the following Monday, whereas that distinguished 
old soldier lived and fought and sold himself for many 
years afterwards. Hardly a letter, indeed, from 






THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 129 

Noailles at this period fails to show that the man, 
having been completely outwitted by Renard's 
keen diplomacy, was entirely at sea, and badly 
served by his informers. 

But I go beyond this. Philip had anchored in 
Southampton Water on the afternoon of the 19th 
of July, 1554, and landed on that of the 20th. 
On the night of the 20th, after the Prince had 
landed, Noailles learnt in London, by an imperial 
messenger, for the first time of his arrival, and 
communicated the news to the King of France 
immediately by letter ; and on the 23rd he writes : — 

" J'ai envoye ung des miens a Hamptonne et a 
Winchestre et despescheray demain encores ung 
aultre pour estre mieulx par mesme informe de tout 
ce qui se fera tant a la terre que sur la mer . . . 
affin de tenir advertye vostre majeste." 

It is clear, therefore, that Noailles had no trust- 
worthy person to give an exact account of the 
reception of the Prince until the arrival of the latter 
at Winchester ; and the description in his letters of 
Philip's voyage and doings at Southampton was 
merely current gossip dressed up to suit the palate 
of the writer and his master. 1 How much impar- 
tiality could be expected from Noailles under the 

1 I am of course aware that the ambassador had previously 
sent his brother Francois de Noailles to request the Queen 
to stand godmother to his newly born son, but Francois only 
arrived at Winchester from London on the day the Queen 
received news of the arrival of the Prince off the Isle of 
Wight, which could not have been earlier than the 19th, 
and was back in London again in time for the child to be 
christened, with the Countess of Surrey as the Queen's proxy, 
on the 22nd, which would certainly leave him no time to 
go to Southampton to witness the landing. See " Ambassades 
de Noailles," iii. 282. 

10 



130 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

circumstances may well be imagined. He had been 
thoroughly outmanoeuvred, and French diplomacy 
had received a greater blow than it had sustained 
for many years in seeing England drift apparently 
for good into the arms of Spain. His country was 
at the very moment engaged in a long and costly 
war with the Emperor, and he himself had just been 
detected and exposed for the second time in his 
attempts to suborn and support rebellion in England, 
and was in high dudgeon at being pointedly excluded 
from participation in the marriage festivities. What 
wonder, then, that after slandering the Queen for 
months past he should do as much as possible to 
darken the shadows of the picture of Philip sent 
for the delectation of Philip's enemy ? It were ex- 
pecting too much to suppose that the outwitted 
diplomatist and supple courtier would do otherwise. 
Ill-natured, however, as are Noailles' references 
to Philip, even they do not, in my opinion, warrant 
the distorted picture inferentially derived from them. 
To instance a small matter of which much is made 
by Froude — namely, the vivid scene of the sea- 
sick Prince gulping down beer on the night of his 
arrival at Southampton, to please the English spec- 
tators at his public repast — Noailles says not a word 
about Philip's being ill or seasick, nor do any other 
chroniclers of the time, that I am aware of. The 
only foundation for the story seems to be a remark 
contained in a letter from the Earl of Bedford and 
Lord Fitzwalter from Santiago (Calendar of State 
Papers, Foreign) to the effect that, "as the Prince 
suffers much at sea, it will be well to make prepara- 
tions for him to land at Plymouth, or other port on 
the south coast if necessary." 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 131 

The voyage was a beautifully calm one, and 
the Prince had remained on board the Espiritu 
Santo, at anchor in Southampton Water, for 
twenty hours at least before he landed ; and, 
instead of the dramatic scene at his public supper 
described by Froude, his repast was a private 
one ; and according even to Noailles, who is alone 
responsible for the story, after supper, in the 
presence chamber, Philip told his Spanish courtiers 
that in future they must forget the customs 
of their country and live like Englishmen, and 
" when, according to the English fashion, a quantity 
of wine, beer, and ale was brought in silver flagons, 
he took some beer and drank it " — a very simple 
and appropriate compliment to his new country ; but 
even Noailles tells the story without a hint of the 
loathing of unwilling sacrifice with which Froude 
invested the perfectly natural scene. 

Having thus far spoken of the authorities upon 
which English historians have hitherto based their 
descriptions of the coming of Philip the Prudent, 
and pointed out a few of what I venture to think 
their obvious shortcomings, I will mention some 
other contemporary narratives which may well, it is 
true, sin just as much on the score of partiality, but 
at any rate afford a view of the events recorded 
that has hitherto been almost entirely ignored — 
namely, the view taken by those Spaniards who 
accompanied their Prince in his voyage to England 
in quest of his eager but elderly bride. r 

1 Mr. Prescott is the only historian writing in the English 
language who refers to Spanish accounts at all, and his refer- 
ence is confined to a single mention of Cabrera's bald and 
stolid history and one or two quotations from Sepulveda, who 
appears to have derived what little information he £, f ives from 



132 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

Amongst the five hundred courtiers and servants, 
besides soldiers, who accompanied Philip to Eng- 
land, several would naturally be able and disposed 
to put upon record, for transmission to their friends 
in Spain, full narratives of the great events they 
witnessed — events, be it said, which had deeply 
stirred the public imagination of Spaniards, who had 
been taueht to believe that the marriage of their 
prince in England would mean not only the mastery 
of their country over France, but the restoration of 
all Christendom to the true faith. These letters, in 
a period when newspapers were not, would fre- 
quently be printed and circulated by enterprising 
booksellers, and no doubt many of such news- 
letters, both in print and manuscript, are still hidden 
in bundles and volumes of miscellaneous papers in 
the public and private libraries in the Peninsula. 
One curious manuscript letter, written from Win- 
chester by Juan de Barahona to Antonio de Bara- 
hona, was found in the library of the Escorial fifty 
years ago, and published in the first volume of the 
" Documentos ineditos para la Historia de Espafia " 
in 1842. The manuscript had belonged to the con- 
temporary chronicler Florian de Ocampo, and gives 
an extremely full account of the voyage, reception, 
and marriage, abounding in curious details of the 
life, dress, and manners of the time. In referring 
to this narrative in the following pages I shall dis- 
tinguish it as narrative No. 1. 

one of the narratives now before me. Simon Renard's letters 
to the Emperor in the Granvelle papers are naturally also 
referred to by most historians of the period in question, but,, 
important as they are from many points of view, they only 
give a purely official and diplomatic account, and are Flemish 
and imperial rather than Spanish and personal in their interest. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 133 

Many years later there was discovered in the 
Biblioteca Nacional a record which, to Spaniards at 
least, was much more valuable and interesting. It 
was a printed tract entitled " Summary and 
Veracious Relation of the Happy Voyage made by 
the Unconquered Prince of the Spains, Don Felipe, 
to England, and his Reception in Vinchester, where 
he was married, with his Departure for London ; 
in which are contained the great and marvellous 
things that happened at that time. Dedicated to 
the Most Illustrious Lady Donna Luisa Enriquez 
de Giron, Countess of Benavente, by Andres 
Munoz, Servant to his Serene Hio-hness the Infante 
Don Carlos. Imprinted in Qaragoca, in the house 
of Esteban de Najera, 1554, at the cost of Miguel 
de Capila, bookseller." The author was a lackey 
to the unhappy Don Carlos, then a child, and his 
own personal observation is confined to the elabo- 
rate preparations for Philip's voyage made in the 
city of Valladolid and the journey of the little prince 
to Benavente, in Castile, to take leave of his father. 
What he saw and heard he relates with a trivial 
minuteness of detail, particularly as to the persons 
who were to accompany Philip and the clothes they 
took with them, which to an ordinary reader would 
be tedious in the extreme. But although his own 
share in the voyage ended at Benavente, whence 
Don Carlos returned to Valladolid, Mufioz ap- 
parently made arrangements with some member of 
the suite — no doubt of similar rank to himself — to 
send him particulars from England, and his account 
is therefore carried down to the departure of Philip 
and Mary for London after their marriage. This 
is by far the fullest account known, especially as to 



134 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

the events prior to Philip's embarkation ; but the 
writer's position naturally caused him to dwell 
mainly upon the sartorial aspect of things which 
came under his observation, and he describes the 
splendour and pageantry rather as a spectator than 
as an actor. I shall call Mufioz's narrative No. 2. 

About the same time as the discovery of Mufioz's 
letter three other letters, which in my opinion are 
even more valuable, because of the position of the 
supposed author, were found in the Escorial library. 
The first is a printed tract in the form of a diary and 
is entitled " Transcript of a Letter sent from Eng- 
land to this City of Seville, in which is given a 
Relation of the Events of the Voyage of our Lord 
the Prince Don Philip, from his Embarkation in 
the Corufia, a Port of Spain, to his Marriage to the 
Serene Queen of England. 1 554." The book 
bears the well-known device, although not the 
name, of the celebrated Sevillian printer Andres de 
Burgos. In the same library was found a manu- 
script letter taking up the narrative where the last- 
mentioned tract ended — namely, after the marriage 
at Winchester at the end of July — and carrying it 
to August 19th, when the Court was at Richmond. 
No printed copy of this continuation is known to 
exist, but it is almost certainly written by the same 
hand, and contains many remarks and opinions 
which would probably have been suppressed if the 
letter had been published. A continuation of this, 
again, was also found in the Escorial, written ap- 
parently by the same person, bringing the narrative 
down to October 2nd, and is dated from London, 
where the King and Queen then were. These three 
letters, which I shall distinguish by the numbers 3, 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 135 

4, and 5, were published, together with Mufioz's 
narrative (No. 2), by the Society of Bibliophilists of 
Madrid in 1877, under the editorship of Don 
Pascual de Gayangos. 

In inquiring into the probable authorship of these 
three extremely valuable and interesting letters 
Sefior de Gayangos gives good reason for suppos- 
ing that they were written by a young courtier 
named Pedro Enriquez, one of Philip's stewards. 
He is known to have had a perfect mania for 
writing relations of what he saw and heard, and has 
been called the Spanish Tacitus. 1 He was a 
brother of the Marquis of Villanueva and a relative 
both of the Duke and Duchess of Alba, of whose 
movements he gives a very minute account in the 
above letters. He also identifies himself as a 
steward of the King in one of his complaints of the 
exclusive service of Philip by Englishmen, and is 
known to have been one of the very few Spanish 
noblemen who remained with Philip in London. 
His style, moreover, is peculiar, and I have had a 
former opportunity of commenting upon it in con- 
nection with a rapid and industrious piece of 
historical transcription of his, executed in the 
following year in Ghent ; 2 and I have no doubt 
that Don Pedro Enriquez was the author of the 
three letters I am speaking of. Few people could 
have had better opportunities of observation than 
he. He accompanied Philip everywhere ; his rank 
and his relationship to the all-powerful Alba brought 
him within the inner circle of the Court, and the 

1 Cabrera, " Relaciones," and Nicolas Antonio, " Biblioteca 
Nova." 

2 " Chronicle of King Henry VIII. of England." London : 
Bell and Sons. 1880. 



136 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

feelings he expresses are those of the nobles who 
surrounded the King and not the gossip of the 
servants' hall or a valet's list of his master's finery. 
With these four letters the Society for Bibliophilists 
printed another by a different author, addressed 
from London at the end of December, 1554, giving 
a very full account of the reception of Cardinal Pole ; 
but as this does not touch the subject in hand I 
omit any further reference to it. 

In the British Museum there is a small tract in 
Italian, apparently printed in Milan in 1554, called 
" The Departure of the Serene Prince with the 
Spanish Fleet, and his Arrival in England, with the 
Order observed by the Queen in his Highness's Re- 
ception, and the most Happy Wedding ; with the 
Names of the English, Spanish, and other Lords 
and Gentlemen who were present, and the Liveries, 
Festivities, and other Things done at the Wedding." 
It is signed " Giovanni Paulo Car," and the writer 
was a servant of the Marquis of Pescara. A para- 
phrase or adaptation of the letter also exists in the 
Museum, and appears to have been published in 
Rome in the same year, but it is not signed, and 
contains many additional particulars. The contents 
of these two tracts, again, appear to have been 
blended into a narrative published in the following 
year, probably in Rome, in which the person to 
whom the letter is addressed is described as the 
" illustrious Signor Francesco Taverna Cracanz," 
and although it is not signed by Car it evidently is 
by him, as he speaks of the Marquis of Pescara all 
through the narrative as his master. I propose in 
referring to this narrative to call it No. 6. We have 
thus a mass of contemporary evidence from persons 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 137 

who were certainly attached to Philip's suite, by the 
aid of which and the authorities already known a 
more minute and trustworthy account than any 
hitherto presented of the events in question may be 
constructed. 

Renard had first broached the subject of the 
marriage to Mary in August, 1553, and all the 
attempts of Noailles to inspire fear and hatred of 
the match in the breasts of the Queen and her 
people had only made her more determined to carry 
out the wishes of her heart, and, as she no doubt 
herself thought, to enhance the happiness and pros- 
perity of her people. Egmont and his glittering 
train had been snowballed by the London 'prentices 
when he came formally to offer Philip's hand to the 
Queen in January, 1554. A whirlwind of passion 
and panic had passed over southern England at the 
thought of a Spanish consort ruling in the land, and 
at about the time that gallant Wyatt and his 
dwindling troop of " draggle-tayles " were wearily 
toiling up Fleet Street, only to find that the Queen's 
courage and their leader's irresolution had wrecked 
their enterprise, a dusty courier clattered into Valla- 
dolid with the premature news that Lord Privy 
Seal, the Earl of Bedford, and another English lord 
had started for Spain with the contract that was to 
make Philip king of England. His Highness was 
hunting at umbrageous Aranjuez, a hundred miles 
off, and the messenger, just alighting to kiss the 
hand of poor lame little Prince Carlos, went scour- 
ing over the tawny plains again, bearing his preg- 
nant tidings. 

The courting had all been done by the Emperor 
through clever Renard ; and the Prince, dutiful 



138 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

son as he was, bent to his father's will without 
even knowing the terms of the bargain by which 
he was to be bound for life. The conditions 
imposed by the patriotism of Mary and her Council 
were hard for the most powerful monarch on earth 
to brook for his son. Philip's power was so fenced 
round by limitations and safeguards that it was plain 
to see the English nobles meant his sceptre to be a 
shadowy one, and the sombre, sensitive pride of the 
Prince was wounded to the quick at the light esteem 
in which they seemed to hold him ; but, as Sandoval 
says, " he, like a second Isaac, was ready to sacrifice 
himself to his father's will and the good of the 
Church." And he did so gracefully and with 
dignity. No sooner had the courier delivered his 
message at Aranjuez than Philip set off on his 
return to Valladolid with his gaudy escort of horse- 
men in their red and yellow doublets. In hot haste 
the old Castilian capital put on its holiday garb to 
celebrate the event ; the great square, standing 
much as it stands to-day, was bravely adorned, and 
costly hangings covered all one side of it where the 
Prince sat to see the jousts, tourneys, cane-play, and 
fireworks, and where he sat, alas ! the next time he 
saw Valladolid, on his return five years afterwards, to 
watch unmoved the hellish fireworks of the great 
auto de fi. 

The wedding rejoicings had hardly begun when 
they were changed to mourning by the news of the 
death of Don Juan of Portugal, the husband of 
Philip's sister Juana ; and the narrator, Mufioz, 
breaks off in the midst of his rapture over the 
splendour of Valladolid's joy to relate the pompous 
grandeur of its sorrow — how between the screen 






THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 139 

and the altar of St. Paul's there were 3,000 
candles of white and yellow wax, and how all the 
solemnity of previous exequies paled before these. 
In the meantime Philip had sent one of his stewards, 
Don Gutierre Lope de Padilla, to receive the English 
envoys at Laredo. After waiting there for a month 
with the Prince's guard to pay them due honour, 
he found that the news sent had been premature, 
and that the marriage treaty had not yet even been 
ratified, and was not, indeed, until Egmont's second 
visit to England in March. So Padilla found his 
way back again to Valladolid by the end of March, 
and they decided to take the matter in more leisurely 
fashion in future. But in a few weeks came news 
from the Emperor himself that the contract was 
ratified, and then the Marquis de las Navas was 
ordered to take the Prince's first present to his 
bride. We are told that the Marquis fitted him- 
self out for his mission regardless of cost, and his 
splendour appears to have been equalled by the 
princely gifts of which he was the bearer, and 
the noble hospitality extended to him in England. 1 
Philip's offering to Mary consisted of "a great table 
diamond, mounted as a rose in a superb gold setting, 
valued at 50,000 ducats ; a collar or necklace of 18 
brilliants, exquisitely worked and set with dainty 
grace, valued at 32,000 ducats ; a great diamond 
with a fine large pearl pendant from it (this was 
Mary's favourite jewel, and may be seen on her 
breast in most portraits). They were (says narrative 
No. 2) the most lovely pair of gems ever seen in the 
world, and were worth 25,000 ducats. Then comes 

1 See letter from Lord Edmund Dudley to the Council, 
quoted in Tytler, " Edward VI. and Mary." 



140 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

a list of pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies of 
inestimable value, and other presents without number 
for the Queen and her ladies. Eighty fine horses 
and fifty hackneys were sent on to Corunna to await 
the Prince's coming, and all Castile and Aragon, not 
to speak of Leon, were alive with artificers of the 
gorgeous garb and trappings to fit out the proud 
nobles who were to follow their Prince, each, with 
true Spanish ostentation, bent upon outstripping the 
others in the richness and splendour of themselves 
and their train. 1 Mufioz, in narrative No. 2, gives 
a list of the clothes made for each of the principal 
grandees, which it would be tedious and unnecessary 
to repeat here. 

The Prince, great as he was, was only first among 
his peers, and if he could be magnificent so could 
his train, and Alba and Medina-Celi, Egmont and 
Aguilar, Pescara and Feria vied with their master 
in their finery. Each great noble — and there were 
twenty of them — took his train of servants in new 
liveries, and the Prince had a Spanish guard of 
100 gentlemen in red and yellow, 100 Germans 
in the same uniform, but with silk facings, "as 
their custom is to go bravely dressed," 100 
archers on horseback, and 300 servants in the 
same gaudy colours of Aragon. All this splendid 
apparatus was a comparatively new thing for 
Spaniards at the time ; the homely, uncere- 
monious relations between sovereign and people 
had only been put aside for the pompous etiquette 

1 This was in despite of Renard's recommendation to 
Philip : " Seulement sera requis que les Espaignolez qui 
suyvront vostre Alteze comportent les faeons de faire des 
Angloys et soient modestes, conrians que vostre Alteze les 
aicarassera par son humanite costumiere." 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 141 

of the house of Burgundy, on the coming of Philip's 
grandfather from Flanders with his Spanish bride to 
take up the sceptre dropped by the dead hand of 
Isabel the Catholic, and the gold of the Indies had 
since that time poured into Spain and spread a thirst 
for showy pomp even amongst the frank, honest, 
homely gentlemen who had formed a majority of 
the Spanish hidalgo class. The changed taste, 
however, was new enough still to attract the atten- 
tion of the crowd who had not yet become accustomed 
to so much splendour. 

All these elaborate preparations being completed, 
Philip, with nearly 1,000 horsemen, glittering and 
flashing in the pitiless Castilian sun, left Valladolid 
on the 14th of May — not for England yet, but 
far down on the Portuguese frontier, at Alcantara, 
to meet his widowed sister, who had been forced to 
come out of her bitter grief to govern her father's 
kingdom during Philip's absence. He accompanied 
her five days on her journey to Valladolid, and then 
turning aside to take a last leave of his mad grand- 
mother, Juana la Loca, bent his course towards 
Benavente, on the high road to Santiago, arriving- 
there on the 3rd of June, covered with dust of travel, 
but gracious, as he could be, to those who had enter- 
tained his boy Carlos, who had preceded him. 

Next day there was a grand bull-fight in the plaza, 
which Philip and Carlos saw from Pero Hernandez's 
flower-decked house. The return of the Princes to 
Count Benavente's castle was not quite so dignified as 
it might have been, as one bull was so "devilish" 
that it refused to be killed, and held the plaza 
victoriously against all comers until the next morn- 
ing, whereupon Philip and his son had to slip out 



142 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

by Pero Hernandez's back door and reach the 
castle by a roundabout way. The day after there 
was a hunt and a tourney, and then after supper 
the Princes mounted on a high scaffold, richly 
dight, to see "a procession of beautiful and strange 
inventions." Torches blazed all round them, and 
each device was led by one of the neighbouring 
squires with twenty pikemen and drummers and 
fifers, each detachment in a separate livery. 
Elephants manufactured out of horses and paste- 
board, castles with savages inside, a green taber- 
nacle with a lovely maiden borne by savages, a 
model of a ship dressed with English and Spanish 
flags, and, strangest of all, a girl in a coffin com- 
plaining of Cupid, who came behind on horseback. 
When the device reached the middle of the plaza 
the god of love was suddenly hoisted on high by a 
rope round his middle, and let off fireworks, to the 
delectation of the crowd. As a relief to this foolery 
the great Lope de Rueda then represented "a sacred 
play with comic interludes," which, no doubt, was 
better worth seeing than the "conceits and fireworks" 
that pleased the narrator so much. The next day, 
after bidding good-bye to the son who was afterwards 
to hate him so bitterly, the Prince started in the cool 
of the summer night on his way to the sea. 

At Astorga a splendid reception had been pre- 
pared for him, but he could not stay, and pushed on 
with all possible speed, news having reached him 
that the Earl of Bedford and Lord Fitzwalter were 
already awaiting him at Santiago. There he arrived 
on the vigil of St. John, the 23rd of June, and there 
as usual golden keys were offered by kneeling 
citizens ; silks and satins, velvets and brocades 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 143 

flaunted in the sun, and in the upper window of 
a house on the line of route sat the two English 
lords, their mantles before their faces, watching 
the progress of their future king to worship at the 
shrine of the Spanish patron saint, St. James. The 
next morning Philip sent a party of his highest nobles 
to bring Bedford and Fitzwalter to him, and "being 
advised of their coming, his Highness came out of 
his chamber into a great hall, strangely hung with 
rich tapestries, and on the lords half-kneeling and 
doffing their bonnets the Prince received them 
graciously, with his hat in his hand. The principal 
ambassador (i.e., Bedford), a grandee and a good 
Christian, produced the marriage contract, the con- 
ditions of which his Highness accepted before all 
present. As the contents were only known to the 
Prince and his Council, we were unable to learn them. 
The English nobles then kissed hands in turn, and 
as they went out one said to the other in his own 
tongue, ' Oh ! God be praised for sending us so 
good a king as this.' The remark was made so 
quietly that it would not have been noticed, only that 
a Spanish gentleman who understood their language 
stood close to them and happened to hear it." 

The envoys had some reason to be pleased with 
their Queen's future consort, for after accompanying 
him to the cathedral the next day Bedford received 
as a gift what is described as being one of the finest 
pieces of gold ever seen, of exquisite and elaborate 
workmanship, chased with grotesque figures, and 
standing a yard and a half high, of solid gold. 
The narrator (No. 2) says that 6,000 ducats' worth 
of gold was employed in the making of it, and 
the handiwork cost more than 1,000. The twenty 



144 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

English gentlemen who accompanied the envoys all 
received splendid gifts, although their appearance 
was already sufficiently rich with their " thick gold 
chains and great copiousness of buttons," which last 
characteristic of English fashion at the time seems 
to have attracted most of the Spanish observers. 
Four days were spent in rest and rejoicing at 
Santiago, and then a three days' ride brought 
them to Corunna, where there were more rejoicings. 
Kneeling aldermen at the gate presented golden 
keys as usual ; a marvellous canopy was held over 
the Prince's head ; triumphal arches spanned the 
way ; and the local poet had contrived to evolve 
the following couplet, which was held aloft by five 
nymphs — 

" No basta fuerza ni mafia 
Contra el principe de Espana, 

which may be rendered — 

" Force and cunning both in vain 
Strive against the Prince of Spain." 

The narrator (No. 2) airs his historical knowledge 
in describing an allegorical group containing a figure 
of Hercules, whom he speaks of as having been "a 
King of Spain before Christ, and having built many 
great edifices in the country, such as the Pillars of 
Hercules at Cadiz and the tower at the entrance 
to the port of Corunna, where there is a marvellous 
mirror showing ships that are far off at sea." 

With all pomp, and with a naked sword of justice 
borne before him by his master of the horse, the 
Prince was conducted to the shore to see the gallant 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 145 

fleet riding at anchor awaiting him. Drawn up on 
the beach were 600 Guipuzcoan sea warriors armed 
with lances, and as the fleet and castle thundered 
out their salutations the townsfolk, we are told, 
feared their dwellings would all be shaken down, 
and " for an hour and a half neither heaven nor 
earth was visible." Thence the Prince went round 
by the castle to the little dock, where forty Biscay 
fisher boats were ready with their glistening cargoes 
of fine fish to cast at the feet of their beloved Philip. 
The E no-fish ambassadors bested as a favour that 
the new consort would make the voyage in one of 
the British ships that had brought them over, but 
this was not considered prudent by Philip's cautious 
councillors, and as a compromise the English envoys 
were allowed to choose from amongst all the Spanish 
ships the one that was to convey the Prince. Their 
choice fell upon a fine merchant vessel commanded 
by the bravest and best of those bold Biscay mariners 
who are the pride of Spain, Martin de Bertondona, 
and the next morning Philip and his Court went to 
inspect it. A splendid sight it must have been with 
its towering carved and gilded poop and forecastle. 
It was hung, we are told, from stem to stern with 
fine scarlet cloth, and aloft on every available spot 
were coloured silk pennons. The forecastle was 
hung with crimson brocade painted with golden 
flames. A royal standard, thirty yards long, of 
crimson damask, with the Prince's arms painted 
on it, hung from the mainmast, and a similar flag 
from the mizzenmast. The foremast had ten pointed 
silk flags painted with the royal arms, and there 
were thirty other similar flags on the stays and 
shrouds. Three hundred sailors in red uniforms 

11 



146 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

formed the crew, and we are assured that the 
effect of the ship was that of a lovely flower- 
garden, as well it might be, and the cost of the 
decorations was 10,000 ducats. The English ships 
were then inspected and admired, and the ship that 
had carried the Marquis de las Navas over to 
England with the jewels was visited, and its 
captain related how the good Queen was anxious 
for her consort's arrival, and how she had ordered 
1,000 gentlemen to await him with as many horses, 
as she thought no horses would be brought from 
Spain. All next day is spent in hunting, and the 
favourite, Ruy Gomez, preceding his master on his 
return into the town, is saluted by the fleet instead 
of the Prince by mistake, much to the latter's amuse- 
ment. The next day heralds announced that every 
one was to be examined by the Prince's alcalde before 
embarking, and that no woman was to go without 
her husband. Mufioz says that 12,000 soldiers were 
shipped in the hundred ships (some of which car- 
ried 300 bronze pieces) and thirty sloops that 
formed the fleet, but this seems to be an ex- 
aggeration, as narrative No. 6 gives 6,000 soldiers 
and as many sailors as going in the main squadron 
that convoyed Philip (consisting of about 100 sail) ; 
and Noailles, who would minimise it as much as 
possible, says 4,000. Don Luis de Carvajal 
remained behind with about thirty sail to take the 
troops that had not arrived (Noailles says 2,000) and 
bring up the rear. 

On the 1 2th of July Philip and his Court embarked 
in a sumptuous galley of twenty-four oars, manned 
by sailors in scarlet and gold, with plumed hats of 
scarlet silk, and, amidst music, singing, and daring 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 147 

gymnastic feats of the mariners, went on board 
Martin de Bertondona's ship the Espiritu Santo. 
The next day, Friday, at three in the afternoon 
they set sail, the dense crowd on shore crying to 
God to send the travellers a safe voyage, and in the 
same breath hurling defiance to the French. There 
was a slight swell and wind until next day at dinner, 
when the weather fell dead calm, " which looked as 
if it might last a month, but raised the spirits of 
those who were depressed by "marine vomitings." 
The next day a delightful fair breeze sprang up, and 
on a smooth sea the splendid fleet ran across the 
bay, sighting Ushant on Sunday. On Wednesday 
a Flemish fleet of eighteen galleons, which was 
cruising in the Channel, hove in sight, and con- 
voyed them past the Needles with some ships of 
the English navy, and into Southampton Water, 
where on Thursday, the 19th of July, at four o'clock, 
the combined fleet anchored amid the royal salute 
from the English and Flemish fleets of thirty 
sail that were assembled to receive them. The 
English and Flemish sailors had not got on 
particularly well together during the time the 
two fleets had awaited the arrival of Philip. 
Renard had complained to the Emperor that 
the Flemish sailors were hustled and insulted 
whenever they set foot on shore, and Howard, 
the lord admiral, had mocked at their ships 
and called them cockle - shells ; I but I can 
find no contemporary authority for the extremely 
unlikely story of the English admiral having thrown 
a shot across the bows of the Prince's fleet to compel 
it to salute the English flag. 

1 Renard to the Emperor, quoted in Tytler, " Edward VI. 
and Mary." 



148 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

Philip, however, was determined to gain over the 
jealous hearts of his new subjects by his courtesy and 
graciousness. Renard's recommendations and the 
Emperor's instructions had been very definite on the 
point, and every account, Spanish, English, and 
Italian, with the sole exception of Baoardo's, quoted 
by Froude, agrees that the Prince's demeanour was 
kindly, courteous, and frank. Damula, the Venetian 
ambassador to the Emperor, writes to the Doge, 1 
saying that on disembarking the Prince treated every- 
body with great graciousness and affability, without 
any pomp or royal ceremony, mixing with people as 
a comrade; and Cabrera, speaking of his arrival, says: 
" Some of the English were inclined to be sulky, 
but the King won them over with his prudence and 
affability, and with gifts and favours, together with 
his family courtesy." (Our narrative No. 6 specially 
mentions the Prince's cortesia e gentilezza di par- 
lare. 2 ) 

As soon as the anchors were down the English 
and Flemish admirals went on board the Espiritu 
Santo to salute the Prince, and the Marquis de las 
Navas put off from Southampton with the six young 

1 July, Calendar of State Papers, Venetian. 

2 Soriano, the Venetian ambassador in Madrid, says that 
the gentle courtesy he adopted in England was continued 
after his return to Spain, and that, whilst maintaining his 
natural gravity and dignity, his kindness and graciousness 
were remarkable to all persons. Michaeli, the Venetian 
ambassador in London, who had sided with Noailles in his 
opposition to the match, is emphatic in his testimony of 
Philip's affability whilst in England, and says that his con- 
duct towards his wife was enough to make any woman love 
him, " for in truth no one else in the world could have been 
a better or more loving husband." These and many other 
similar contemporary assurances prove that Philip acted all 
through the business like an honest, high-minded gentleman. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 149 

noblemen who were to be the new King's lords-in- 
waiting. The Prince dined and slept on board, and 
the next day there came off to him the Emperor's 
ambassador, the Marquis de las Navas, Figueroa 
("the ancient ambassador with the long white 
beard "), Pescara, and the Earls of Arundel, Derby, 
Shrewsbury, and Pembroke (?). Noailles was pro- 
bably wrong as regards the last-named nobleman, as 
the Spanish narratives agree that he arrived at South- 
ampton from the Queen next day, with a splendid 
escort for the new sovereign. He was also wrong 
in asserting that the King was invested with the 
Garter on board his vessel, for it appears to have 
been given to him in the barge before he stepped 
on shore by Arundel, probably assisted by Sir John 
Williams — Lord Williams of Thame l — to whom 
one of our narratives says the Prince gave the wand 
of chamberlain, whilst the other narratives say the 
office was conferred on "the man who brought him 
the Garter." The future consort received these high 
personages on board the Espiritu Santo cap in 
hand, and after presenting them to his principal 
courtiers went on board the splendid barge awaiting 
him, accompanied by the English nobles and by 
Alba, Feria, Ruy Gomez and four chamberlains, 
Olivares, Pedro de Cordoba, Gutierre Lopez de 
Padilla, Diego de Acevedo, Egmont, Horn, and 
Berooies. No sign was made to the rest of the 
fleet, and the mass of courtiers only obtained leave 
to land after the royal party had approached the 
shore. No soldier or man-at-arms, however, was 

1 He died in 1559, and a magnificent alabaster monument, 
with the recumbent figures of himself and his wife, exists in 
fine preservation in the chancel of Thame church, of which 
he was a liberal benefactor. 



150THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

to land, on pain of death, for not only had Philip 
learnt from Renard the agony of distrust of the 
Spanish arms felt by the English people, but he 
had received news of his father's reverse in the 
Netherlands and urgent orders to send him all 
the troops and money he had or could obtain. 
The Spanish fleet were not even allowed to enter 
the port of Southampton, but after some delay, and 
great discontent of the Spaniards at what they con- 
sidered such churlish treatment, were sent to Ports- 
mouth to revictual for their voyage to Flanders. 

After the presentation of the chain and badge of 
the Garter Philip stepped on English soil, and the 
first to greet him was Sir Anthony Browne, who 
announced in a Latin speech that the Queen had 
chosen him for her consort's master of the horse, 
by whom her Majesty had sent him the beautiful 
white charter housed in crimson velvet and orold 
that was champing the bit hard by. The Prince 
thanked his new grand equerry, but said he would 
walk to the house prepared for him ; but Browne 
and the lords of the household told him this was 
unusual, and the former " took him up in his arms 
and put him on the saddle," and then kissing the 
stirrups walked bare-headed by the side of his 
master. All the English and Spanish courtiers 
preceded them, and amidst apparent rejoicing they 
slowly passed through the curious crowd to the 
Church of the Holy Rood. The Prince must have 
looked an impressive figure with his dapper, erect 
bearing, his yellow beard and close-cropped yellow 
head, dressed as he was in black velvet and silver, 
his massive gold chains and priceless gems glittering 
in his velvet bonnet and at his neck and wrists. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 151 

Browne was no unworthy pendant to his prince. 
He was dressed in a suit of black velvet entirely 
covered with gold embroidery and a surcoat of the 
same with long hanging sleeves. 1 When the Prince 
had returned thanks for his safe voyage he was con- 
ducted to the lodgings prepared for him, which we 
are told were beautifully adorned, particularly two 
rooms, a bedroom and presence chamber hung with 
gold-worked damask with the name of King Henry 
on it ; but none of our narrators say anything about 
Baoardo's story of the dismay caused by the words 
Fidei defensor on the hangings. All the English 
archers and the guard and porters about the Prince 
wore the flaming colours of Aragon, and the Spanish 
attendants and courtiers looked on with jealous rage 
at the attendance on him of English servants. The 
dinner and supper were private, but the meals were 
ostentatious, ceremonious, and too abundant for the 
Spanish taste. On Saturday, the next day, the 
same programme was gone through : to Mass in 
the same order as before, the Spanish courtiers 
being obliged to leave before the service was over, 
in order to banish the idea that they were in official 
attendance on the Prince, who came out surrounded 
by Englishmen only. It rained so hard that his 
Highness, who had no hat or cape, had to borrow 
them of an Englishman near him, although the 
church was just opposite his lodging. 

Southampton is described in glowing terms. It 
is said to be a beautiful port with 300 houses, which 
were filled to their utmost capacity by the courtiers 

1 Probably the dress in which he is represented in the 
magnificent painting of him belonging to the Marquis of 
Exeter at Burghley (No. 236, Tudor Exhibition). 



152 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

and the 400 Spanish servants who landed the day 
after the Prince. The Queen at Winchester had 
learnt post-haste of the landing of her future hus- 
band, and an active interchange of messengers were 
soon scouring - backwards and forwards through the 
pitiless rain of the next three days. Early on Satur- 
day morning the Earl of Pembroke arrived from the 
Queen with an escort for the Prince of 200 gentlemen 
dressed in black velvet with gold chains and medals, 
and 300 others in scarlet cloth with velvet facings, 
all splendidly mounted. Then Egmont posts off to 
kiss the Queen's hand, and meets Gardiner coming 
to Philip with a costly diamond ring from her 
Majesty. The next day twelve beautiful hackneys 
come from the bride to her affianced husband, and 
after that the well-beloved Ruy Gomez is dispatched 
with a ring to thank her, and this interchange of 
courtesy and compliment is thus kept up until all 
things are arranged for the journey to Winchester. 
Before Philip left Southampton, however, better 
news came from Flanders. The French had not 
followed up their victory at Marienberg, and the 
Imperialists could breathe again. The 600 jennets 
that came from Spain were therefore disembarked 
and remained in England, as well as Philip's own 
horses, "which," says Pedro Enriquez (No. 3), "the 
master of the horse took to his own stable ; not a 
bad beginning to try and keep them altogether in 
the long run." On Sunday, the day before he left 
Southampton, Philip dined in public for the only 
time there. He was served with great ceremony 
by the English, but Alba, although he took no 
wand of office in his hand, insisted on handing his 
master the napkin, and the Spanish courtiers looked 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 153 

on with ill-disguised contempt at what they con- 
sidered the clumsy service of their successors. The 
courtier who wrote narrative No. 3 bursts out at this 
point with his complaint : " My lady Dona Maria de 
Mendoza was quite right when she said we should 
be no more good. We are all quite vagabonds now 
and of no use to any one. We had far better go 
and serve the Emperor in the war. They make us 
pay twenty times the value of everything we buy." 

The next morning in the pouring rain the royal 
cavalcade set out for Winchester, 3,000 strong. The 
nobles and gentry had been flocking in for days 
with their retainers in new liveries ; Pembroke's 
escort, with 200 halberdiers of the guard and as 
many light-horse archers, dressed much as are the 
beefeaters of to-day, guarded the Prince's person, 
the Spanish guard, to their chagrin, being still on 
board the ships. On the road 600 more gentlemen, 
dressed in black velvet with gold chains, met his 
Highness, and when nearing Winchester six of 
the Queen's pages, beautifully dressed in crimson 
brocade with gold sashes, with as many superb 
steeds, were encountered, who told his Highness 
the Queen had sent the horses to him as a present. 
But not a word anywhere of Baoardo's sensational 
story, embellished by Froude, of the breathless 
messenger from the Queen, the terror-stricken 
Prince, and the gloomy resolve to consummate his 
sacrifice even if he got wet in doing it. 

Philip was surrounded by the English nobles 
Winchester, Arundel, Derby, Worcester, Bedford, 
Rutland, Pembroke, Surrey, Clinton, Cobham, 
Willoughby, Darcy, Maltravers, Talbot, Strange, 
Fitzwalter, and North, and by about fifteen Spanish 



154 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

grandees, whose names will have less interest for 
English readers. He was dressed, when he started, 
in a black velvet surcoat adorned with diamonds, 
leather boots, and trunks and doublet of white satin 
embroidered with gold ; but this delicate finery had 
to be covered by a red felt cloak to protect it from 
the rain. Notwithstanding this it was too wet for 
him to enter Winchester without a change, so he 
stayed at a "hospital that had been a monastery 
one mile from the city," and there donned a black 
velvet surcoat covered with gold bugles and a suit 
of white velvet trimmed in the same way, and thus 
he entered, passing the usual red-clothed kneeling 
aldermen with gold keys on cushions, and then to 
the grand cathedral, which impressed the Spaniards 
with wonder, and above all to find that " Mass was 
as solemnly sung there as at Toledo." 

A little crowd of mitred bishops stood at the great 
west door, crosses raised and censers swinging, and 
in solemn procession to the high altar, under a velvet 
canopy, they led the man whom they looked upon as 
God's chosen instrument to permanently restore their 
faith in England. Then, after admiring the cathe- 
dral, Philip and his Court went to the dean's house, 
which had been prepared for his reception, in order 
to allay the maiden scruples of the Queen with 
regard to his sleeping under the same roof with her 
at the bishop's palace before the solemnisation of 
the marriage. After Philip had supped, and pre- 
sumably was thinking more of going to bed than 
anything else, the Lord Chamberlain 1 and the Lord 
Steward 2 came to him, it being ten o'clock at night, 

1 Sir John Gage. 

2 The Earl of "Arundel. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 155 

and said the Queen was waiting for him in her 
closet, and wished him to visit her secretly with 
very few followers. He at once put on another 
gorgeous suit, consisting of a French surcoat em- 
broidered in silver and gold, and a doublet and 
trunks of white kid embroidered in gold, "and very 
gallant he looked," says Mufioz's informant (No. 2). 
The party traversed a narrow lane between the two 
gardens, and on reaching a door in the wall the 
Lord Steward told the Prince he could take with 
him such courtiers as he chose. Philip did not 
seem disposed to run any risks, and construed the 
invitation in a liberal spirit, taking into the garden 
Alba, Medina-Celi, Pescara, Feria, Aguilar, Chin- 
chon, Horn, Egmont, Lopez- Acevedo, Mendoza, 
Carillo, and others. They found themselves in a 
beautiful garden with rippling fountains and arbours, 
which reminded them, they say, of the books of 
chivalry. Indeed, nothing is more curious than the 
grave seriousness with which all the Spanish nar- 
rators refer to England as the land of Amadis and 
of Arthur and his knights, and their attempts to 
identify localities and characteristics of England 
with the descriptions they have read of the land of 
romance, which they firmly believe to be England 
and not Brittany. 

The Prince and his party entered by a little back 
door, and ascended a narrow, winding staircase to 
the Queen's closet. She was in a " long narrow 
room or corridor where they divert themselves," 
surrounded by four or five aged nobles and as many 
old ladies, the Bishop of Winchester being also with 
her, and the whole party, we are told, was marvel- 
lously richly dressed, the Queen herself wearing a 



156 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

black velvet gown cut high in the English style 
without any trimming, a petticoat of frosted silver, 
a wimple of black velvet trimmed with gold, and a 
girdle and collar of wonderful gems. She was 
walking up and down when the Prince entered, and 
as soon as she saw him went quickly towards him 
and kissed her hand before taking his. In return 
he kissed her on the mouth " in the English 
fashion," and she led him by the hand to a chair 
placed by the side of her own under a canopy. 
The Queen spoke in French and her future hus- 
band in Spanish, and they thus made themselves 
well understood. Whilst they were in animated 
converse the Lord Admiral (Lord William Howard), 
" who is a great talker and very jocose," risked 
some rather highly flavoured jokes, which the free 
manners of the time apparently permitted. The 
two lovers sat under their brocade canopy chatting 
for a long time ; but this probably seemed some- 
what slow to the bridegroom, who, after asking the 
Queen to give her hand for all his Spaniards to kiss, 
as they loved her well, begged to be allowed to see 
her ladies, who were in another room. The Queen 
went with him, and as the ladies approached two by 
two he kissed them all " in his way " with his 
plumed cap in his hand, "so as not to break the 
custom of the country, which is a very good one." 
Whether the Queen thought it good on this occa- 
sion is not clear ; but when her lover wanted to 
leave directly the extensive osculation was over she 
would not let him go, but carried him off for another 
long talk with her. " No wonder," says the nar- 
rator (No. 2), " she is so glad to get him and to see 
what a gallant swain he is." When he had to leave 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 157 

her she playfully taught him to say "Good-night," 
and he made this the excuse for going to the ladies 
again to say it to them ; but when he reached them 
he had forgotten the outlandish words, and had to 
come back to the Queen to ask her, " whereat she 
was much pleased," but probably less so when he 
found it necessary to go back once more to the 
ladies to salute them with " God ni hit," Car, the 
Marquis of Pescara's servant (narrator No. 6), in 
describing this interview says that the Queen's 
o-overness told the Prince she thanked God 
for letting her live to see the day, but asked 
his pardon for not having reared a more beautiful 
bride for him. According to one of the Italian 
variants of the same narrative the Queen is 
still less complimentary to herself, and in reply 
to Philip's thanks to her after the marriage says 
it is she who is grateful to him for taking- an old 
and ugly wife : {brutta e vecchid). The courtier's 
narrative (No. 4) speaks of the Queen in somewhat 
less unfavourable terms and says: "Although she 
is not at all handsome, being; of short stature and 
rather thin than fat, she has a very clear red and 
white complexion. She has no eyebrows, is a 
perfect saint, but dresses very badly." 

This narrator is very critical about the ladies' 
dresses and is quite shocked at some of the English 
fashions. He says : — 

" They wear farthingales of coloured cloth with- 
out silk ; the gowns they wear over them are of 

1 In the narrative signed by Car (British Museum) the 
Queen is described in this interview as " chatting gaily, and 
although she is a little elderly she displays the grace befitting 
a queen." 



158 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

damask, satin, or velvet of various colours, but very 
badly made. Some of them have velvet shoes 
slashed like men's, and some wear leather. Their 
stockings are black, and they show their legs even 
up to the knees, at least when they are travelling, 
as their skirts are so short. They really look quite 
indelicate when they are seated or riding. They 
are not at all handsome, nor do they dance grace- 
fully, as all their dancing only consists of ambling 
and trotting. Not a single Spanish gentleman is in 
love with any of them * . . . and they are not 
women for whom the Spaniards need put them- 
selves out of the way in entertaining or spending 
money on them, which is a good thing for the 
Spaniards." 

When the same narrator reaches London he 
speaks with somewhat more experience, but his 
opinion is not much modified. He says, when 
speaking of the vast numbers of ladies that served 
the Queen : — 

" Those I have seen in the palace have not struck 
me as being handsome ; indeed, they are downright 
ugly. I do not know how this is, because outside I 
have seen some very beautiful and attractive women. 
In this country women do not often wear clogs and 
wraps, as they do in Spain, but go about the city 
and even travel in their bodices. Some of them 
walk in London with veils and masks before their 
faces, which makes them look like nuns, who do not 
wish to be known. Women here wear their skirts 



1 Don Pedro Enriquez was wrong here. One of the 
greatest of the Spanish nobles, Count cle Feria, had fallen 
madly in love with Jane Dormer, one of the Queen's maids 
of honour, and soon afterwards privately married her. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 159 

very short, and their black stockings are trim and 
tightly gartered ; the shoes are neat, but are slashed 
like men's, which does not look well to Spanish eyes." 
Philip, we are told, slept late next morning, and 
as soon as he was up the Queen's tailor brought him 
two superb dresses, one made of very rich brocade 
profusely embroidered with gold bugles and pearls, 
with splendid diamonds for buttons, and the other 
of crimson brocade. His Highness went to Mass 
in a purple velvet surcoat with silver fringe and 
white satin doublet, and then after his private dinner 
went in great state to see the Queen. She received 
him in the great hall of the palace, with the courtiers 
ranged on a raised platform on each side. The 
great officers of state preceded her, and she was 
followed by fifty ladies splendidly dressed in purple 
velvet, " but none of them pretty," and having met 
her consort in the middle of the hall she led him to 
the dais, where he stood in sweet converse with her 
for some time. But fickle Philip " went, as usual, 
to talk to the ladies, and we, about twelve of us, 
kissed the Queen's hand." "We" also seem to 
have been talking to the ladies before that, but do 
not appear to have got on very well, as "we could 
hardly understand each other." Then Philip went 
to Vespers and the Queen to her chapel, and after 
supper they met again, and Figueroa privately read 
the Emperor's abdication, which made Philip king 
of Naples, and all the ambassadors, except Noailles, 
paid homage to the new sovereign, who received 
them bareheaded. 1 

1 Baoardo, quoted by Mr. Froude, says " he raised his hat 
to nobody," but these narratives often mention his being 
uncovered. 



160 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

The wedding ceremony next day is fully described 
by the English authorities already mentioned, and 
the narratives before us, although extremely minute 
in detail, do not vary much from the accepted 
accounts. The ancient cathedral was all aflame 
with splendid colour, and the world has rarely seen 
so gorgeous and so rich a company as was there 
assembled. All the pomp that regal expenditure 
could buy in an age of ostentation was there. All 
the impressive solemnity that the Roman Church 
could give to its ceremonies was lavished upon this. 
The Queen, we are told, blazed with jewels to such 
an extent that the eye was blinded as it looked upon 
her ; her dress was of black velvet flashing with 
gems, and a splendid mantle of cloth of gold fell 
from her shoulders ; but through the Mass that 
followed the marriage service she never took her 
eyes off the crucifix upon which they were devoutly 
fixed. Her fifty ladies were dressed in cloth of gold 
and silver, and " looked more like celestial angels 
than mortal creatures." Philip matched his bride 
in splendour. He too wore a mantle of cloth of 
gold embroidered with precious stones, and the rest 
of his dress was the white satin suit the Queen had 
sent him the day before, and he too was a blaze of 
jewels. The Earl of Derby, who preceded the 
Queen with a sword of state, appears to have 
greatly impressed the imaginations of the Spaniards, 
as several references are made to his power and 
splendour. He is spoken of as the "king of Mon- 
gara (Man), who wears a leaden crown," and it is 
easy to see that much of the interest in him is 
caused by the supposed identification of his king- 
dom with scenes of the romances of chivalry. 






THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 161 

After the ceremony the King and the Queen 
walked through an immense crowd to the palace 
side by side, and entered the great hall, 1 which the 
narrator (No. 2) calls the "hall of Poncia," for the 
wedding banquet. A high table, eight yards long, 
was placed on a dais, and at it sat the King and 
Queen, the latter being on the right and in a finer 
chair than her husband. Gardiner sat at the end of 
the high table, and on the floor were four other 
tables, where the nobles, to the number of 158, 
partook of the feast. Before the King and Queen 
stood Lords Pembroke and Strange with the sword 
and staff of state, and all the courtly ceremony of 
saluting the dishes as they are brought in, and 
doffing bonnets to the throne, even in the absence 
of the Queen, is set forth with admiring iteration by 
the form-loving Spaniards. Their jealous eyes, too, 
do not fail to notice that the Queen takes precedence 
in everything. Not only has she the best chair, but 
she eats from gold plate, whilst her consort eats 
from silver. This, they say, is no doubt because he 
is not yet a crowned king, and it will be altered 
later. All the tables are served with silver, except 
some large dishes ; and great sideboards of plate 
stand at each end of the hall. The buffet behind 
the high table had over a hundred great pieces of 
gold and silver plate, with a "great gilt clock half 
as high as a man," and a fountain of precious marble 
with a gold rim. There were four services of meat 
and fish, each service consisting of thirty dishes, 2 

1 Narrator No. 6 says, " The hall, which is beautifully 
hung with cloth of gold and silk, measures forty of my paces 
long and twenty wide." 

2 Underhyll (Harleian Manuscript, 425, f. 97) gives a very 
quaint account of his share in this banquet. " On the 

12 



162 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

and minstrels played during the feast, whilst the 
solid splendour and pompous ceremony appear to 
have impressed all the Spaniards with wonder not 
unmixed with envy. It is, indeed, here that the 
jealousy of the courtier narrator (Nos. 3, 4, and 
5) first bursts out. The only Spaniard who was 
allowed to serve the King was Don Inigo de Men- 
doza, son of the Duke of Infantado, who was cup- 
bearer, and four yeomen of the mouth, who helped ; 
but " as for any of the Prince's own stewards doing 
anything, such a thing was never thought of, and 
not one of us took a wand in our hands, nor does it 
seem likely we ever shall, neither the controller nor 
any one else, and they had better turn us all out as 
vagabonds." The Earl of Arundel presented the 
ewer with water for the King's hands, and the Mar- 
quis of Winchester the napkin. The ewer, we are 

maryage daye the kynge and quene dyned in the halle in the 
bushop's palice sittynge under the cloth of estate and none 
eles att that table. The nobillitie satte att the syde tables. 
Wee (i.e., the gentlemen pensioners) weare the cheffe 
sarueters to cary the meate and the yearle of Sussex ower 
captayne was the shewer. The seconde course att the 
maryage off a kynge is gevyne unto the bearers ; I meane 
the meate butt nott the dishes for they were off golde. It 
was my chaunce to carye a greate pastie of a redde dere in a 
great charger uery delicately baked ; which for the weyght 
thereoff dyuers refused ; the wyche pastie I sentt unto 
London to my wyffe and her brother who cherede there- 
with many off ther trends. I wyll not take uppon me to 
wryte the maner of the maryage, off the feaste nor of the 
daunssyngs of the Spanyards thatt day who weare greatly 
owte off countenaunce specyally King Phelip dauncynge 
when they dide see me lorde Braye, Mr. Carowe and others 
so farre excede them ; but wyll leve it unto the learned as it 
behovithe hym to be thatt shall wryte a story off so greate a 
tryoumffe." The Louvian Chronicle (Tytler) says : — " The 
dinner lasted till six in the evening, after which there was 
store of music, and before nine all had retired." 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 163 

told (narrative No. 6), contained " not water, but 
white wine, as is the custom here." 

Then, after the Queen had pledged all her guests 
in a cup of wine, and a herald had proclaimed the 
titles of Philip as King of England, France, Naples, 
and Jerusalem, Prince of Spain, and Count of 
Flanders, the royal party retired to another cham- 
ber, with the English and Spanish nobles, where 
the time passed in pleasant converse, the Spaniards 
talking with the English ladies, " although we had 
great trouble to make out their meaning, except of 
those who spoke Latin, so we have all resolved not 
to give them any presents of gloves until we can 
understand them. The gentlemen who speak the 
language are mostly very glad to find that the 
Spaniards cannot do so." 

When all was ready the ball began, but as the 
English ladies only danced in their own fashion and 
the Spanish courtiers in theirs, the latter were rather 
left out in the cold, until the King and Queen danced 
a measure together in the German style, which was 
known to both. After dancing- until nightfall, 
supper was served with the same ceremony as 
dinner, and then more talk and gallant compliment, 
and so to bed. 

The next day the King only was visible, and 
dined alone in public, and on the succeeding day 
the same ; but on the third day (Saturday) the 
Queen heard Mass in her private pew and received 
the Duchess of Alba, who had arrived from South- 
ampton after the marriage. The reception of this 
proud dame was ceremonious enough for anything ; 
but from the bitter complaints of her kinsman, who 
probably wrote three of the letters before us, it is 



1 64 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

clear that she, in common with the rest of the 
Spanish nobles, was deeply dissatisfied with her 
position in this country, so different from what they 
expected. The Duchess was conducted to the 
palace by the Earls of Kildare and Pembroke and 
all the Court, and when she entered the presence 
the Queen came almost to the door to meet her. 
The Duchess knelt, and the Queen, failing to raise 
her, courtesied almost as low and kissed her on the 
mouth, "which she usually does only to certain 
ladies of her own family." She led the Duchess to 
the dais and seated herself on the floor, inviting her 
guest to do likewise, but the latter begged her 
Majesty to sit on the chair before she (the Duchess) 
would sit on the floor. The Queen refused to do so, 
and sent for two stools, upon one of which she sat, 
whereupon the Duchess, instead of accepting the 
other, sat beside it on the floor. The Queen then 
left her stool and took her place on the floor also, 
and finally, after much friendly wrangling, both 
ladies settled on their respective stools side by 
side. The Queen understood Spanish, but spoke in 
French, and the Marquis de las Navas interpreted 
to the Duchess, who only understood Spanish. 
When the Earl of Derby was presented to the 
Duchess, he greatly shocked her by offering to kiss 
her on the mouth, according to the universal 
English fashion, and she drew back to avoid the 
salute, but not quite in time, although she assured 
the Spaniards that the earl had only managed to 
kiss her cheek. 

But the chagrin of the proud, dissatisfied 
Spaniards was growing deeper as they saw their 
hopes of domination in England disappear. The 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 165 

men-at-arms and bodyguard, cooped up in their 
ships at Portsmouth and Southampton, forbidden 
to land under pain of death, were becoming restive ; 
the courtiers and their followers, scoffed at and 
insulted in the streets, and waylaid and robbed if 
they ventured into the country, were forced to put 
up with everything silently, by order of the King ; 
but they could relieve their minds by writing to 
their friends in Spain an account of their sorrows. 
Writing from Winchester, narrator No. 2 says : — 

" After all this weary voyage, these people wish to 
subject us to a certain extent to their laws, because 
it is a new thing for them to have Spaniards in their 
country, and they want to feel safe. The Spaniards 
here are not comfortable, nor are they so well off 
as in Castile. Some even say they would rather 
be in the worst stubble-field in the kino-dom of 
Toledo than in the groves of Amadis." 

The courtier who wrote No. 3 is even more 
emphatic. He says : — 

"Great rogues infest the roads and have robbed 
some of our people, amongst others the chamber- 
lain of Don Juan de Pacheco, from whom they took 
400 crowns and all his plate and jewelry. Not a 
trace has been found of them, nor of the four or five 
boxes missing from the King's lodgings, although 
the Council is sending out on all sides. The friars 
have had to be lodged in the college for safety and 
bitterly repent having come." 

But dissatisfied as the Spaniards were, there was 
still sufficient novelty in their surroundings during 
their stay at Winchester in the last days of July to 
keep them amused. The wonderful round table of 
King Arthur in the castle, where the twelve peers 



1 66 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

are still enchanted, and their names written round 
in the places where they sat, claims the wondering 
attention of the visitors. The curious beer made 
with barley and a herb, instead of wheat, as in 
Flanders, is discussed ; and the strange habit the 
ladies, and even some gentlemen, have of putting 
sugar in their wine, and the never-ending dancing 
going on amongst the ladies of the palace excite re- 
mark. On the last day of July most of the English 
lords and squires had gone home for the present ; 
the Spaniards were distributed about Winchester 
and Southampton ; the admiral of Spain was under 
orders to take a part of the fleet back again ; and 
the bulk of the Spanish troops were only awaiting a 
fair wind to take them to Flanders, and the King 
and Queen, with a small suite, set out for Basing, 
the Lord Treasurer's J house, fifteen miles off. 
Most of the accounts before us end at this point, 
but the two interesting letters to which I have given 
the numbers 4 and 5, written respectively from 
Richmond and London, show clearly the gradual 
exacerbation of the dislike between the Spanish and 
English as time went on, in spite of the diplomatic 
attempts to connect Philip's name at every oppor- 
tunity with acts of clemency and moderation. 

On the 19th of August, which is the date of the 
letter from Richmond, the royal honeymoon seems 
yet not entirely to have waned : — 

"Their Majesties are the happiest couple in the 
world, and are more in love with each other than I 
can say here. He never leaves her, and on the 

1 This was the Marquis of Winchester, not, as Sehor 
Gayangos supposes, Sir Edward Peckham, who was Treasurer 
of the Mint. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 167 

road is always by her side, lifting her into the 
saddle and helping her to dismount. He dines 
with her publicly sometimes, and they go to Mass 
together on feast days." 

This letter from Richmond gives the following 
curious account of the lavish scale on which the 
royal establishment was maintained : — 

" All the rejoicings here consist only of eating 
and drinking, as they understand nothing else. The 
Queen spends 300,000 ducats (a year ?) in food, and 
all the thirteen councillors and the Court favourites 
live in the palace, besides the lord steward, the lord 
chamberlain, the chancellor, and our people, with 
their servants. The ladies also have private rooms 
in the palace, with all their servants, and the 
Queen's guard of 200 men are also lodged there. 
Each of the lords has a separate cook in the 
Queen's kitchens, and as there are eighteen different 
kitchens such is the hurly burly that they are a 
perfect hell. Although the palaces are so large that 
the smallest of the four we have seen is infinitely 
larger, and certainly better, than the Alcazar of 
Madrid, they are still hardly large enough to hold 
the people who live in them. The ordinary (daily?) 
consumption of the palace is 100 sheep (which are 
very large and fat), twelve large oxen, eighteen 
calves, besides game, poultry, venison, wild boar, 
and a great number of rabbits. Of beer there is no 
end, and they drink as much as would fill the river 
at Valladolid." 

The writer is very indignant at the scant courtesy 
paid to his great kinsfolk the Albas, and at the fact 
that they have had to put up with lodgings that are 
considered below their dignity even in the villages. 



168 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

"It is not enough," he says, "to deprive them of 
their office, but they must needs give them bad 
quarters as well. . . . These English are the most 
ungrateful people in the world, and hate the 
Spaniards worse than the devil, as they readily 
show, for they rob us in the town itself, and not 
a soul dares to venture two miles on the road with- 
out being robbed. There is no justice for us. We 
are ordered by the King to avoid dispute and put 
up with everything whilst we are here, enduring all 
their attacks in silence. They therefore despise us 
and treat us badly. We have complained to 
Bibriesca and the ambassador, but they say it is for 
his Majesty's sake that we must bear everything 
patiently." 

It was no wonder that under such circumstances 
these proud hidalgos begged to be allowed to join 
the Emperor in Flanders for the war. Medina-Celi 
was the first to revolt at his treatment, and no 
sooner had he obtained leave to go than eighty 
other gentlemen followed him with their suites, and 
so by the middle of August the only Spanish nobles 
in attendance on Philip were Alba, Feria, Olivares, 
Pedro de Cordoba, Diego de Cordoba,and three 
gentlemen, amongst whom was Pedro Enriquez, the 
supposed author of the letters. The insults upon 
the Spaniards personally were bad enough ; but 
what was more galling even was the disappointment 
they felt at the political effect of the match. Instead 
of a submissive people, ready to bow the neck at 
once to the new king and his followers, they found 
a country where even the native sovereign's power 
was strictly circumscribed, and where the foreigner's 
only hope of domination was by force of arms ; and 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 169 

this they saw in the present case was impossible. 
Enriquez, if he be the author, says : "The marriage 
will indeed have been a failure if the Queen have no 
children. They told us in Castile that if his High- 
ness became king of England we should be masters 
of France ; but quite the contrary has turned out 
to be the fact, for the French are stronger than ever 
and are doing as they like in Flanders. . . . Kings 
here have as little power as if they were vassals, 
and the people who really govern are the councillors ; 
they are not only lords of the land, but lords of the 
kings as well. They are all peers, some of them 
raised up by the Church revenues they have taken 
and others by their patrimonial estates, and they 
are feared much more than the sovereign. They 
publicly say they will not let the King go until they 
and the Queen think fit, as this country is quite big 
enough for any one king." 

Great preparations were made for the entrance 
of the Queen and her consort into London. The 
signs of vengeance had been cleared away, and the 
city was as bright and gay as paint and gilding 
could make it. The " galluses, " from which dandled 
the fifty dead bodies of the London trainbandsmen 
who had deserted to Wyatt at Rochester Bridge, 
were cleared away from the doors of the houses in 
which their families lived, and the grinning skulls 
of the higher offenders were taken from the o-ates 
and from London Bridge ; but London, for all its 
seeming welcome and for all its real loyalty to the 
Queen herself, was more deeply resentful of the 
Spanish intrusion than any city in the realm, and 
the few Spaniards who still remained with Philip 
repaid with interest the detestation of the Londoners 



i/o THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

towards them. " We enter London (narrative 
No. 4) on Saturday next, but, considering their 
treatment of the Spaniards already there, we ought 
to stay away. Not only will they give them no 
lodgings, x but they affront them on every opportunity, 
as if they were barbarians, maltreating them and 
robbing them in the taverns to their hearts' content. 
The friars brought by his Majesty had better not have 
come, for these English are so godless and treat them 
so vilely that they dare not appear in the streets." 

Only a few days before this letter was written from 
Richmond (August 19th) two Spanish noblemen of 
the highest rank, Don Pedro and Don Antonio de 
Cordoba, ventured to walk in the streets of London 
in their habits as knights of Santiago, with the great 
crimson cross embroidered on their breasts, as they 
are worn in Spain to this day, and this attracting 
the derisive attention of the irrepressible London 
street boy of the period, the two gentlemen were 
soon surrounded by a hooting crowd, who wanted 
to know what they meant by wearing so outlandish 
an ornament, and tried to strip the offending coats 
from their backs. The affair nearly ended in blood- 
shed, and the Spaniards had to fly for their lives. 
The very few Spanish ladies who came with Philip 
were as resentful as their spouses, and we are told 
that " Donna Hieronima de Navarra and Donna 
Francisca de Cordoba have decided not to wait 
upon the Queen, as there is no one to speak to them 
at Court, these English ladies being so badly be- 
haved ; and the Duchess of Alba will not go to Court 
again, as she had been so discourteously treated." 

1 The Spaniards had to be quartered in the halls of the 
City guilds. 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 171 

With all this grumbling, however, the country 
itself extorted the admiration of the visitors ; the 
books of chivalry, we are told, have only stated half 
the truth. The palaces, rich and splendid with the 
unhallowed spoils of the monasteries ; the flowery 
vales, pushing" fountains, enchanted woods, and 
lovely houses far exceed even the descriptions in 
Amadis ; but there are " few Orianas and many 
Mavilias amongst the ladies," and the romancers 
have said nothing about the strange, uncouth beings 
who inhabit the enchanting land. " Who ever saw 
elsewhere a woman on horseback alone, and even 
riding; their steeds well, and as much at home on 
their backs as if they were experienced horsemen ? " 
And after confessing the beauty of the country 
itself, the narrator concludes that the disadvantages 
of it outweigh the advantages, and wishes to God 
that he had never seen the place or the sea that led 
to it. And things got worse as time went on. The 
Londoners themselves were in an exaggerated 
panic, that explains their hard treatment of their 
guests. The author of the " Chronicle of Queen 
Mary," who lived in the Tower of London, and faith- 
fully set down from day to day the news he heard, 
reflects the terror inspired by the presence of Philip's 
suite in the capital. We have seen that at the 
utmost the number of Spaniards of all ranks who 
landed from the fleet did not exceed 500, of whom 
four-fifths had left for Flanders and Spain before 
the King entered London, and yet the diarist, writing 
about this time, says, " At this tyme ther was so 
many Spanyerdes in London that a man shoulde 
haue mett in the stretes for one Inglisheman above 
iiij Spanyerdes to the great discomfort of the 



172 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

Inglishe nation. . . . The halles taken up for 
Spanyerdes." And, again, as showing how com- 
plete was the panic, fomented, no doubt, by 
Noailles and the Protestants, there is an entry 
in the "Chronicle of Queen Mary" of September 
8th, as follows: "A talke of XII. thowsand 
Spanyerdes coming more into this realm, they said 
the fetch the crowne." It is not surprising, with 
such a feeling as this current in the city, that the 
courtier's next letter, written from London on 
October 2nd, should be more despondent than ever. 
They were all ill and home-sick ; some had almost 
died, and the country did not agree with them. 

" God save us and give us health, and bring us 
safely home again. The country is a good one, 
but the people are surely the worst in the world. I 
verily believe if it were not for the constant prayers 
and processions for us in Spain we should all have 
been murdered long ago. There are slashings and 
quarrels every day between Englishmen and 
Spaniards, and only just now there was a fight in 
the palace itself, where several were killed on both 
sides. Three Englishmen and a Spaniard were 
hanged for brawling last week. Every day there 
is some trouble . . . God help us, for these bar- 
barous, heretical people make no account of soul 
and conscience ; disobey God, disregard the saints, 
and think nothing of the Pope, who they say is 
only a man like themselves, and can have no direct 
dominion over them. The only Pope they recognise 
is their sovereign." 

The futility of the marriage, from a national 
point of view, rankled in the breasts of the dis- 
appointed courtiers as much as did their personal 



THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 173 

discomfort. They felt that the trouble they had 
undergone, and the humble pie they had eaten, had 
added nothing to the power of their country or their 
sovereign, and their prevailing idea was how soonest 
and best to wash their hands of an ungrateful and 
profitless business in which all their sacrifices had 
been in vain. 

"We Spaniards," says the narrator, "move 
about amongst all these Englishmen like so many 
fools, for they are such barbarians that they cannot 
understand us, nor we them. They will not crown 
the King nor recognise him as their sovereign, and 
say that he only came to help govern the kingdom 
and beget children, and can go back to Spain as soon 
as the Queen has a son. Pray God it may be soon, 
for he (Philip) will be glad enough, I am sure, and 
our joy will be boundless to be away from a land 
peopled by such barbarous folk. The King has 
forgiven the Queen 2,250,000 ducats she owed him, 
and has distributed 2,0,000 ducats a year in pensions 
to these lords of the Council, to keep them in a good 
humour. All this money is taken out of Spain. A 
pretty penny this voyage and marriage have cost 
us, and yet these people are of no use to us after 
all." 

Bitter disappointment is the note struck all through. 
The English lords who had been so heavily bribed 
were ready enough to take all they could get ; but 
they were as patriotic as they were greedy, and did 
not sell their country's interests for their pensions. 
Renard for once had made a mistake. He was 
ready to assent to any conditions the English liked 
to propose on paper, trusting to the personal in- 
fluence of Philip on his queen after the marriage 



174 THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT. 

was effected. But he forgot that the Queen herself 
was a mere puppet in the hands of her nobles, as 
the narrator I have quoted soon discovered, and, 
whatever ascendency the young bridegroom might 
obtain over his half-Spanish bride, her councillors, 
from the stern Gardiner downwards, were English- 
men before everything, to whom the over-weening 
power of the Emperor had been held up as a terror 
since their childhood. And so the whole splendid 
plot failed, and the magnificent nuptials had hardly 
been forgotten before Philip, recognising that his 
sacrifices had been in vain, and that he could never 
rule in England, made the best of an unfortunate 
speculation, and with all gravity, courtesy, and 
dignity left Mary to die of a broken heart, alone, 
disappointed, and forsaken. 




tA<Q*vQ. 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPANISH 
ARMADA. 





ttf% 




THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPANISH 
ARMADA. 

Perhaps no character in history has been more 
misjudged and misrepresented than Philip II. For 
three centuries it has pleased English writers par- 
ticularly, to portray him as a murderous ogre, 
grimly and silently plotting the enslavement of 
England for thirty years before the great catastrophe 
which reduced his vast empire to the rank of a 
harmless second-rate power. As a matter of fact 
he was a laborious, narrow-minded, morbidly con- 
scientious man, patient, distrustful, and timid ; a 
sincere lover of peace and a hater of all sorts of 
innovations. He was born to a position for which 
he was unfitted, and was forced by circumstances 
stronger than himself to embark upon gigantic 
warlike enterprises which he disliked and deplored. 
For ages it had been considered vital in the 
interests both of England and Spain that a close 
alliance should exist between the two countries, in 
order to counterbalance the immemorial connection 
between Scotland and France; and that the Flemish 
dominions of the house of Burgundy should under 
no circumstances be allowed to fall under the sway 

13 I77 



178 THE EVOLUTION OF 

of the French. It is easy to understand that with 
France paramount over the North Sea ports and in 
Scotland, England would never have been safe for 
a moment ; whilst the principal continental seat of 
English foreign trade would have been at the mercy 
of England's secular foe. At the same time all 
central Europe would have been cut off from its 
Atlantic seaboard, whilst the principal maritime 
powers, Spain and Portugal, would have been ex- 
cluded from all ports north of Biscay, except on the 
sufferance of their jealous rival. This was the 
tradition to which Philip had been born ; inheriting 
as he did the dominions both of Spain and the 
house of Burgundy, and almost at any cost he was 
forced, as his forefathers had been, to cling to the 
connection between his country and England. 
Henry VIII. had known full well that he might 
strain the cord very tightly without breaking it 
when he flew into the face of all Christendom, and 
contemptuously cast aside for an ignoble passion 
the aunt of the Emperor, a daughter of the proudest 
royal house in Europe. Charles V. dared not, 
and did not, break with England in consequence ; 
for Henry had taken care to draw close to Scotland 
and France, and the very hint of such a combination 
was sufficient to render the Emperor all amiability. 

For a time it looked as if the alliance had been 
rendered proof against all attack by the marriage of 
Philip and Mary, and it is highly probable that it 
would have been so if Renard's plan to marry 
Elizabeth to the Duke of Savoy had been carried 
out ; but here again circumstances were too strong 
for persons. The marriage would have been useless 
unless Elizabeth were first legitimised, and Mary 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 179 

could not legitimise her without bastardising herself, 
which she obstinately refused to do, notwithstanding 
all the entreaties of Philip and his friends. But 
Philip ostentatiously" favoured his young sister-in- 
law, in the hope that when she came to the throne 
he might have some claim upon her gratitude, and 
induce her to maintain the friendship which was so 
necessary for his interests. It was no question of 
Catholic or Protestant yet. He would have sup- 
ported her — as indeed he did- — however firm a 
Protestant she might be ; for the next Catholic heir 
to the crown, Mary Stuart, was practically a French- 
woman, married to the heir of the French throne, 
and with her as Queen of England and France, 
Spain and the house of Burgundy would have been 
ruined. 

Elizabeth knew as well as any one how vital it 
was for Philip to be friendly with England ; and 
during a long course of years she traded unscrupu- 
lously upon her knowledge that she might assail, 
insult, plunder, and make more or less veiled war 
upon him, and yet that he dared not openly break 
with her whilst France was greedily eyeing his 
Flemish harbours. From the first moment that 
Elizabeth's reform policy became evident it was 
seen by Spanish statesmen that either the govern- 
ment of England must be changed, so as to bring it 
back to the old cordial alliance, or else Spain must 
seek new combinations of powers, in order to redress 
the balance. For the first alternative to be success- 
ful promptness was necessary, and the government 
of the Queen changed whilst the country was yet 
unsettled and divided. Feria wrote from London 
to Philip only a day or two after Mary's death that 



180 THE EVOLUTION OF 

the country must be dealt with sword in hand rather 
than by cajolery, unless it were to be allowed to slip 
through their hands ; and thenceforward for years 
all of Philip's agents, one after the other, pressed 
upon their master the necessity of using force, either 
by aiding the Catholics to revolt or by a direct attack 
on England. Angry, almost contemptuous, refer- 
ences to the King's hesitancy and timidity are con- 
stantly occurring in the letters of the various 
Spanish ambassadors in England, but beyond 
occasional money aid to the English Catholics 
nothing could be obtained from the King. 

Of all things slow-minded, un warlike Philip desired 
peace, almost at any price, and he saw, as his advisers 
did not, the dangers that surrounded him. Marriage 
designs, cajolery, and other peaceful methods having 
failed to bind Elizabeth to him, he attempted to form 
a new combination. He married the French king's 
daughter as his third wife ; and doubtless even thus 
early had evolved in his mind the idea of a league 
of the Catholic powers as a counterbalance to 
Elizabeth's friendship with Denmark, Sweden, and 
the German Protestant princes. He knew that 
overt assistance from him to the English Catholics 
to depose the Queen and stifle Protestantism would 
increase the enmity of the allied Protestants of the 
Continent, and perhaps let loose the storm of which 
the mutterings were already audible in Flanders. 
So, in answer to Feria's advice and Bishop Quadra's 
arguments in favour of force, he insisted upon a 
policy of soft words, pacification, and palliation ; and 
again and again told his ambassadors, "You must 
keep principally in view by all ways and means to 
avoid a rupture . . . the importance of which is so 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 181 

great that I cannot be satisfied without repeating it 
so many times." 

But if he thus deprecated open warfare he was 
at all times, after Mary Stuart's French husband 
was dead, ready enough to subsidise plots to 
assassinate or depose Elizabeth ; and large sums 
were sent to England for that purpose. In 
vain his agents continued to tell him how useless 
it was to expect that the English Catholics would 
pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him, unless 
they were assured of his armed support. But 
this assurance he would not give. A marriage of 
his son Carlos with the widowed Mary Stuart, 
simultaneously with a Catholic rising in England, 
was an expedient after his own heart, but even here 
his timidity was so great that he would run no risk 
of firing a shot in favour of a project in which he 
would have been the principal gainer. He writes 
(June 15, 1563) to Bishop Quadra: "With regard 
to the adherents that the Scots will have in England, 
and the increase of their number if necessary, you 
will not interfere in any way further than you have 
done, but let them do it all themselves, and gain 
what friends and sympathy they can for their opin- 
ions amongst the Catholics and those upon whom 
they depend. I say this because if anything should 
be discovered they should be the persons to be blamed 
and no one in connection with 21s." He was told 
plainly that the negotiations could not be carried on 
in this way, which pledged everybody but himself, 
but it was all useless : his instructions were firm and 
undeviating : under no circumstances was he to be 
drawn into war with England. 

In 1564 the English Protestants were almost 



182 THE EVOLUTION OF 

openly sympathising with the growing discontent in 
the Netherlands, and flocks of refugees from Holland 
were daily crossing to England. Spanish ships 
were being pillaged on every sea by English priva- 
teers, and a war of tariffs, and commercial prohibi- 
tions was beinQ; carried on between England and 
Spanish Flanders ; and Philip's advisers told him 
that an open war with England would not injure 
him so much as his present inactivity was doing. 
But withal when he sent a smooth-tono-ued ambas- 

o 

sador, Diego de Guzman, to mollify the English, his 
secret instructions were that he was to tell Elizabeth 
that " his orders were to endeavour to please her in 
all things, as in effect we wish you to do, using every 
Possible effort to that end ; and striving to preserve 
her friendship toivards us and our mutual alliance." 

In August, 1568, Philip sent a new ambassador 
to England, Gerau de Spes. Relations at the time 
were extremely strained between the two countries, 
owing to the expulsion of the English ambassador 
from Spain for some offence against the Catholic 
religion ; and Alba's cruelty in the Netherlands had 
aroused a bitter feeling in England against Spain, 
which was increased by the plots which were known 
to be in progress between the Guises and Alba in 
favour of Mary Stuart. And yet Philip's orders to 
his new ambassador were, "that he was to serve 
and gratify Elizabeth on every possible occasion, as 
in fact I wish you to do, trying to keep her on good 
terms, and assuring her from me that I will always re- 
turn her friendship as a good neighbour and brother." 

When Elizabeth a few months afterwards seized 
Philip's treasure-ships, which had been driven to 
take refuge in English ports to escape from the 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 183 

privateers, he pursued the same peaceful policy. 
Fiery de Spes was all for war and retaliation, but 
beyond seizing English shipping in Spanish and 
Flemish harbours, Philip would not go. He was 
driven for money and sorely beset on all sides, his 
commerce well - nigh swept from the seas, his 
credit diminished, and his rebellious subjects in 
Flanders blockading his own coasts against him. 
Mary Stuart was urging him to action, his own 
ministers were assuring him ceaselessly that the 
only way to check English aggression was to "set 
the fire to Elizabeth's own doors by raising troubles 
in England or Ireland if he was not prepared to go 
to war." But in the face of all provocation, in the 
face of Alba's assurance that his prestige was being 
ruined by his tame submission, he could only say 
after long delay (December 16, 1569) that if 
Elizabeth's hardness of heart continued he should 
really have to consider what could be done. "We 
here think that the best course will be to encourage 
with money and secret favour the Catholics of the 
North, and to help those in Ireland to take up arms 
against the heretics and deliver the crown to the 
Queen of Scotland, to whom it belongs by succes- 
sion." And the only outcome of it all was the futile 
aid to the plots of Norfolk and Ridolfi. 

It was the same again twelve years later when 
Drake's appalling atrocities on the South American 
coasts had aroused the fury of all Spain ; and 
England was enriched by the plunder of sacred 
shrines and peaceful merchantmen. English troops 
were in arms against him in Flanders, and public 
money had been flowing over to the aid of the 
rebels with the thinnest possible disguise, but still 



1 84 THE EVOLUTION OF 

Philip clung obstinately to the English alliance, 
hoping against hope that at last Elizabeth would 
become friendly with him. The most he would do, 
as before, was to help the Irish Catholics in their 
revolt, in order to hamper the English queen and 
prevent her from injuring him further. Certainly 
in all these years he had never entertained for a 
moment the idea of the subjugation of England ; he 
only sought either by removing Elizabeth or by di- 
verting" her attention to troubles at home to draw her 
country back again to the old alliance and friendship. 
Up to this period (1580) the principal reason, 
beyond Philip's natural love of peace, which had 
caused him to follow his long-suffering policy was 
the fear of finding himself opposed both to England 
and France. Catharine de Medici was as facile as 
Elizabeth herself, and could generally, when it suited 
her, patch up a reconciliation between Huguenots 
and Catholics and unite them, for a short time at 
least, under a national banner. But in January, 
1580, an event happened which for the first time 
seemed to hold out hopes that he might be able to 
revenge himself upon Elizabeth without the fear of 
France before his eyes. Archbishop Beaton, Mary 
Stuart's ambassador in Paris, secretly told Philip's 
ambassador there that he and the Dtike of Gtiise 
had prevailed upon the Queen of Scots to place 
herself, her son, and her realm entirely in the hands 
and under the protection of the King of Spain, and 
would send James VI. to Spain to be brought up 
and married there to Philip's pleasure. This meant 
the detachment of the Guises from the French 
interest, and Vargas, the Spanish ambassador, at 
once saw its importance. . He sent off a special 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 185 

courier to Philip, urging him now to action : 
" Such is the state of things there," he says, " that 
if even so much as a cat moved the whole edifice 
would crumble down in three days. If your 
Majesty had England and Scotland attached to you, 
directly or indirectly, you might consider the States 
of Flanders conquered, and . . . you could lay down 
the law for the whole world." 

Guise's adhesion to Spain made all the difference, 
and Philip welcomed the idea of deporting James 
Stuart to Spain as a preliminary measure. Mary 
herself was in high hopes, and Beaton said she 
was determined to leave her prison only as Queen 
of England. Her adherents, he asserted, were 
so numerous in the country, that if they rose 
the matter would be easy without assistance, 
"but with the aid of your Majesty it would soon 
be over." The plan was shelved for a time in 
consequence of the death of Vargas ; and James' 
deportation became unnecessary on the fall of 
Protestant Morton, and the accession to power of 
D'Aubigny, Earl of Lennox, who had already sent 
Fernihurst to Spain to assure Philip of his devotion ; 
but in April of the following year Mary Stuart 
opened negotiations with Tassis, the new Spanish 
ambassador in Paris. " Affairs," she assured him, 
through Beaton, " were never better disposed in 
Scotland, than now to return to their ancient con- 
dition, so that English affairs could be dealt with 
subsequently." The King, her son, she said, was 
quite determined to return to the Catholic religion, 
and inclined to an open rupture with the Queen of 
England. 

Philip, however, wished to be quite sure that 



1 86 THE EVOLUTION OF 

James was really to be a Catholic before helping 
him to the succession of the English crown. 
Father Persons and five or six Jesuits were busy 
in Scotland with Spanish money plotting for the 
restoration of the Catholic religion, and the young 
King himself told them, "that though for certain 
reasons it was advisable for him to appear publicly 
in favour of the French, he in his heart would rather 
be Spanish." Even thus early James' duplicity 
was the subject of wonder to those who surrounded 
him ; and in January, 1582, Mary wrote rather 
doubtfully about his religion to Mendoza, the 
Spanish ambassador in England. " The poor 
child," she said, " was so surrounded by heretics 
that she had only been able to obtain the assurance 
that he would listen to the priests she sent him." 
But she assures the Spaniard that she will bind her- 
self and her son exclusively to Philip in future, 
and begs that the Scottish courtiers should be 
bribed in his interest. The Catholic revival in 
Scotland was being vigorously worked by the 
Jesuits and the nobles, and it soon became evident 
to them also that James was too slippery to be 
depended upon. So they sent Father Holt to 
London in February with some important proposals. 
The rank and file of the Jesuits had no idea that 
their Catholic propaganda in Scotland had been 
contrived and paid for by Spain with a political 
object, and Holt was astounded when the person 
to whom he was directed in London took him to 
Mendoza. His message was that the Scottish 
nobles had decided, as a last resource, if James 
continued obstinate, to depose him, and either 
convey him abroad or hold him a prisoner until 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 187 

his mother arrived in Scotland. They besought 
the guidance of the King of Spain in the matter, 
and begged that 2,000 foreign troops might be sent 
to them to carry out their plans. This message 
was repeated in a softened form to Mary Stuart in 
her English prison, and Mendoza urged his master 
to send the troops requested, "with the support 
of whom the Scots might encounter Elizabeth, and 
the whole of the English north country would be 
disturbed, the Catholics there being in a majority ; 
and the opportunity would be taken for the Catholics 
in the other parts of the country to rise, when they 
knew they had on their side the forces of a more 
powerful prince than the King of Scotland." 

Philip was on the Portuguese frontier at the time, 
and affairs in Madrid were being managed by the 
aged Cardinal de Granvelle, who sent to the King 
notes and recommendations on all letters received. 

He warmly seconded Mendoza's recommendations 
that the troops requested by the Scots nobles should 
be sent, and says : " The affair is so important 
both for the sake of religion, and to bridle England, 
that no other can equal it ; because by keeping the 
Queen of England busy we shall be ensured against 
her helping Alengon or daring to obstruct us in any 
other way." Somewhat later Granvelle repeats the 
same note. Speaking of the fear of the Scots 
nobles that the landing of a laro-e foreign force 
might threaten their liberties, he says : " This is not 
what his Majesty wants, nor do I approve of it, but 
that we should loyally help the King of Scots and 
his mother to maintain their rights ; and by pro- 
moting armed disturbance keep the Queen of 
England and the French busy, at a comparatively 



188 THE EVOLUTION OF 

small cost to ourselves, and so enable us to settle 
our own affairs better. If it had no other result 
than this it would suffice, but very much more when 
we consider that it may lead to the re-establishment 
of the Catholic religion in those parts. It is very 
advantageous that the matter should be taken in 
hand by the Duke of Guise, as it will ensure us 
from French obstruction. Since we cannot hope to 
hold the island for ourselves, Gtrise will not try to 
hand it over to the King of France to the detriment 
of his near kinswoman." He also speaks of the 
probability of Elizabeth's coming to terms with 
Spain on being secured to the throne during her 
life, and the re-establishment of the old alliance 
between the two countries. 

Thus far, then, the aims of Spain were legitimate 
and honest under the circumstances ; and Philip 
had no avowed intention, or thought, of the con- 
quest of England for himself. We shall see how 
he was gradually forced by circumstances and the 
jealousy between the English and Scottish Catholics 
to adopt a different attitude. 

So long as Mary and Mendoza kept the direction 
of the conspiracy in their own hands all was done 
wisely and prudently, but as soon as Lennox and 
the Jesuits had a hand in it a complete muddle was 
the result. Tassis, the Spanish Ambassador in 
France, and Guise had been quite outside the 
new proposition of the Scots nobles, but in March, 
1582, Lennox wrote a foolish letter to Tassis, which 
he sent by Creighton to Paris, laying bare the plan 
and giving his adhesion to it ; but making all 
manner of inflated and exasperated demands. 

Creighton had promised him, he said, 15,000 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 189 

foreign troops, of which he was to have command, 
and he asked in addition for a vast sum of money 
and a personal guarantee against loss of fortune in 
any event. Creighton also went to Guise and 
brought him into the business, and Jesuit emissaries 
were to go to Rome and Madrid to crave aid from 
the Pope and Philip. Mary and Mendoza were 
furious at the ineptitude of Lennox and the priests, 
and Mary particularly that her name should be used 
by them as being the head of the conspiracy. 
Creighton had no authority whatever to promise 
15,000 men, and the idea that Lennox was to have 
command was absurd from a Spanish point of view. 
Philip was alarmed too at the large number of 
persons who were now concerned in the affair, and 
directed that no further steps should be taken. 
The inclusion of Guise in the project soon pro- 
duced its result. He wanted naturally to take a 
large and prominent part, and travelled to Paris to 
meet Tassis secretly at Beaton's house. He was 
full of far-reaching, ill-digested plans ; but his main 
desire evidently was to prevent Spanish troops 
from being sent to Scotland, for fear, he said, of the 
jealousy of the French. His idea was that a large 
mixed force should be sent from Italy under the 
papal flag, whilst he made a descent with French- 
men on the coast of Sussex. But all these fine 
plans were soon frozen under the cold criticism of 
Philip and de Granvelle. Philip, it is true, did not 
yet think of conquering England for himself, but 
Mary and James must owe the English crown to 
him alone, and be bound to restore the close 
alliance between England and Spain, or the change 
would be of no use to him : and this could hardly 



190 THE EVOLUTION OF 

be hoped for if there were too many French and 
Italian troops concerned in the business, or if Guise 
had the main direction of the enterprise. 

Sir Francis Englefield was in Madrid as Philip's 
adviser on English affairs, and both he and the 
numerous English Catholic refugees in France, 
Flanders, and Spain soon made it clear that their 
national distrust and enmity of the French was 
as keen as ever, whilst they looked sourly upon 
any project which should make the Frenchified 
Scots paramount over England. This feeling they 
were careful to urge upon the Spaniards upon 
every occasion, and it is not surprising that Philip 
at last came to believe their assurances that all 
England would welcome a Catholic restoration if 
it came from their old friends the Spaniards, and 
not from their old enemies the French. 

From that time a change was apparent in Philip's 
policy. When he heard of the Raid of Ruthven 
and the flight of Lennox he saw that English 
Protestant intrigue had conquered, and that the 
Scottish-Catholic enterprise was at an end for a 
time. Guise was to be flattered and conciliated, 
but it is clear that henceforward Philip wished to 
confine his (Guise's) attention to France. He was 
told how dangerous it would be for him to leave 
France with his enemies, the Huguenots, in pos- 
session, and was emphatically assured of Spanish 
support in his own ambitious plans at home. 

Guise was flattered, but he could hardly be 
expected to look upon Scottish affairs from Philip's 
point of view. So he got one of his adherents, 
young de Maineville, sent to Scotland to revive 
the idea of the landing of foreign troops there. 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 191 

Beaton, who was thoroughly French, was just as 
anxious to keep the matter afoot in Paris, but 
Philip had lost faith in the enterprise, and only kept 
up an appearance of negotiation in order to main- 
tain his hold upon the Guises and prevent them 
from undertaking anything except under his patron- 
age. De Maineville soon srot on intimate terms 
with James, but the Protestant lords were holding 
him at the time, and Guise was informed by his 
agent that the time was not now propitious for a 
Catholic descent upon Scotland. 

Guise thereupon came to the Spaniards in May, 
1583, with a fresh plan. He had decided, he 
said, to begin with the English Catholics. Eliza- 
beth was first to be murdered and the country 
raised, whilst he landed on the coast, but Philip 
and the Pope must provide 100,000 crowns to 
pay for it. His plans, as usual, however, were 
vague and incomplete, and the English Catholics, 
as well as Philip, looked coldly upon them. 
Father Allen and the English exiles were in 
deadly earnest, " and thought all this talk and 
intricacy were mere buckler-play." Mendoza in 
Paris reports to Philip that " they suspected a 
tendency on the part of the Scots to claim a con- 
trolling influence in the new empire, and as the 
Scots are naturally inclined to the French, they 
would rather the affair were carried through with 
but few Spaniards, whilst the English hate this 
idea, as their country is the principal one . . . and 
they think it should not lose its predominance." 

The English Catholics had a plan of their own 
which they urged upon Philip. The English North 
Country was to be raised simultaneously with the 



192 THE EVOLUTION OF 

landing of a Spanish force in Yorkshire, accom- 
panied by the Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Dacre, 
and other nobles, with Allen as Nuncio and Bishop 
of Durham, and some of the extreme Catholic 
party, even in Scotland, distrusting the French, 
favoured some such plan as this under purely 
Spanish auspices. 

Guise appears finally to have adopted a com- 
bination of this plan and his own. The Spanish 
forces were to land at Fouldrey, Dalton-in-Furness, 
Lancashire, whilst the English North Country was 
to be raised, and the Catholic Scots on the border 
were to co-operate with the Spaniards. Guise at 
the same time was to land in the south of England 
with about 5,000 men. James VI., who had thrown 
himself into Falkland and had assumed the reins 
of government, was in complete accord with Guise 
about it, but the latter, as usual, was for pushing 
matters on far too rapidly to please Philip. He 
(Guise) took upon himself to send a priest named 
Melino to the Pope to ask him to furnish some 
funds for the expedition and to explain the whole of 
the particulars, and this deeply offended the King of 
Spain, who had no idea of having matters arranged 
over his head by such a bungler as Guise. The 
latter also sent Charles Pa^et in disguise to Eno - - 
land in August, 1583, to inquire as to the amount 
of support he might expect when he landed on the 
south coast, and when Philip in due course saw the 
instructions taken by Paget, it became clear to him 
that he must somehow eliminate Guise from the 
project. On the margin of the instructions Philip 
scribbled sarcastic remarks as to the futility of 
Guise's projecting a landing and sending full 



I 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 193 

particulars of his plans to the Pope before he had 
ascertained what support he could depend upon 
when he did land. What opened Philip's eyes 
more than anything else was that the English 
"were to be assured on the faith and honour of 
Guise that the enterprise is being undertaken with 
no other object or intention than to re-establish 
the Catholic religion in England and to place the 
Queen of Scotland peacefully on the throne of 
England, which rightly belongs to her. When 
this is effected the foreigners will immediately retire 
from the country, and if any one attempts to frus- 
trate this intention Gtrise promises that he and his 
forces will join the people of the country to compel 
the foreigners to withdraw." 

Well might Philip underline this and scatter notes 
of exclamation around it, for it marked the parting 
of the ways, and showed that Guise was more 
anxious for his family aggrandisement and personal 
ambition in placing his kin upon the English throne 
than to serve the interests of Spain by securing a 
close union between the two countries to the exclu- 
sion of France, which was Philip's main object. 

Guise was therefore told that he must not be 
precipitate, and the matter was kept in suspense ; 
but from that moment Philip decided to undertake 
the matter alone. Allen and the English Catholics 
had never ceased to urge upon him that his troops 
should be landed first in England, and not in Scot- 
land ; and this now obviously suited Philip best, as 
he was growing more and more doubtful about 
James' religious sincerity. Another fact must have 
also influenced him greatly in the same direction. 
His great admiral, Santa Cruz, had just brilliantly 



194 THE EVOLUTION OF 

routed the French mercenary fleet in the service of 
the Portuguese pretender at the Azores, and in the 
flush of victory had written to Philip begging to 
be allowed to direct his conquering fleet against 
England. " Do not miss the opportunity, sire," he 
wrote, "and believe me I have the will to make you 
king of that country and others besides." The 
grand old sailor made light of the difficulties, and 
besought the King to let him go and conquer 
England in the name of God and Spain. But 
Philip was not ready for that yet, and the idea 
was only now being forced by events into his slow 
mind that perhaps he might be obliged, after all, 
to claim England for his own, since the English 
Catholics were for ever saying they wanted no 
French or Scotsmen ; and not a single English 
pretender was otherwise than Protestant. So Santa 
Cruz was told that the King would consider the 
matter, and in the meanwhile provide for eventuali- 
ties by ordering large supplies of biscuits, and by 
gradually sending men to Flanders. At the same 
time he wrote to his ambassador in Paris, telling 
him in confidence that he intended in due time to 
invade England from Flanders, but no one was to 
learn this until the preparations had advanced too 
far to be concealed ; " and even then they (the 
French) must be told in such terms as may not 
make them suspect an intention of excluding the 
French from the enterprise." 

But what is of more importance still, Philip gave 
directions in the same letter to Tassis in November, 
1583, that his own claim to the English crown as a 
descendant of Edward III. should be cautiously 
broached. If England was to remain in close 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 195 

alliance with Spain, it is difficult to see what other 
course Philip could have taken. James as a suc- 
cessor to his mother was now out of the question, 
so far as Spanish interests were concerned, for he 
was playing false all round. No sooner did the 
Scots Catholics gain the upper hand than he 
intrigued with Elizabeth and the Protestants for 
their overthrow, and immediately the English and 
Protestant faction became paramount he wrote 
beseeching letters for aid to Guise and the Pope. 
All this, of course, Philip knew, for he knew every- 
thing, and although he intended to put Mary Stuart 
on the throne, from this time he was determined 
that her son should not succeed her. 

The discovery of the Throgmorton plot and 
Guise's wild plans in connection therewith threw 
the whole project into the background for a time, 
and confirmed stealthy Philip in the idea that in 
future he must manage matters himself. When 
Tassis, his ambassador in Paris, was withdrawn 
from his post, in the spring of 1584, he wrote an 
important memorandum to his master setting forth 
at length the arguments on both sides for and 
against a landing in England or Scotland, by which 
it is clear that the English and Scottish Catholic 
factions in France were now bitterly at issue on the 
subject. As the English plan had gained ground, 
James had once more considered it advisable to 
feign a desire to become a Catholic ; and Guise had 
again urged the adoption of the plan of a landing 
in Scotland, with the invasion of England over the 
Scots border, James himself being the figurehead. 
Tassis says that such is the jealousy of the Scots 
in England that if an army crossed the Border the 



196 THE EVOLUTION OF 

English Catholics themselves might resist it. " The 
English," he says, " would not like to be dominated 
by Scotsmen, and if the crown of Scotland is to be 
joined to theirs, they still wish to be cocks-of-the- 
walk, as their kingdom is the larger and more 
important one. On the other hand the Scots may 
be unduly inflated with the opposite idea, so that 
imperfections may exist on both sides." As Mary 
Stuart had drawn closer to Spain she had grown 
distrustful of Beaton and Tassis, whom she con- 
sidered too much wedded to French ideas ; but 
withal Tassis in this document very emphatically 
leans to the English view, which he knew was that 
now held by his master. The full plan for a great 
armada was evidently slowly germinating in Philip's 
mind, but the vast expense had first to be provided 
for. When Guise's envoy, Melino, had gone on 
his meddling mission to the Pope his Holiness had 
offered to subsidise the expedition to a moderate 
amount, and in answer to the second appeal from 
James VI. himself he had said that he would stand 
by his previous promise. But this did not suit 
Philip, and he let the Pope know promptly that 
he was willing- to undertake the great task for the 
glory of God and the advance of the Church, but 
that the Pope must subscribe very largely indeed, 
"and must find ways and means through his 
holy zeal to do much more than has yet been 
imagined." He was also warned that Guise ought 
not to be allowed to leave France, where he might 
serve the Catholic cause so much more effectively 
than elsewhere. And so Guise and the Scotsmen 
are pushed further and further into the background, 
Philip's aim being evidently to raise civil com- 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 197 

motion in France, which was always easy enough 
to do, and so to paralyse Henry III. and the 
Huguenots from helping Elizabeth, whilst Guise 
would be powerless to promote the interest in 
England of his kinsman James. 

When it became apparent that the Pope was to 
have a large share in the business the intrigue was 
transferred from Paris to Rome. Sixtus himself was 
wise, frugal, and moderate, and had no great desire to 
serve Philip's political aims, but only to signalise his 
own pontificate by the restoration of England to the 
Church ; but he was surrounded by cardinals who 
represented the different interests. Medici, D'Este, 
Gonzaga, Rusticucci, Santorio, and others repre- 
sented the French view, which was in favour of 
an arrangement with Elizabeth and James, and 
desired to exclude Spanish influence from England. 
Sanzio watched Guise's interests, whilst the Secre- 
tary of State Caraffa, Sirleto, Como, Allen, and 
the Spanish ambassador, Olivares, craftily forwarded 
Philip's wishes, the Pope himself being carefully 
kept in the dark as to the ultimate object in view. 
The cause of religion was invoked all through as 
being Philip's only motive ; inconvenient points 
were left indefinite, with the certainty that Caraffa 
would interpret them favourably to Spanish designs ; 
and by the most extraordinary cajolery the Pope 
was induced to promise a million gold crowns to 
the enterprise. He was not brought to this with- 
out much haggling and misgiving on his part, and 
was very cautiously treated with regard to Philip's 
intention to claim the English crown. "His Holi- 
ness," writes Olivares, "is quite convinced that your 
Majesty is not thinking of the crown of England 



198 THE EVOLUTION OF 

for yourself, and told Cardinal D'Este so. I did 
not say anything to the contrary. He is very far 
from thinking your Majesty has any such views, 
and when the matter is broached to him he will be 
much surprised. However deeply he is pledged to 
abide by your Majesty's opinion, I quite expect he 
will raise some difficulty." Philip's constant orders 
were that the Pope should be plied with arguments 
as to the inadvisibility of the heretic James being 
allowed to succeed, and the need for choosing some 
good Catholic to succeed Mary. The person that 
Philip had decided to make sovereign of England 
was his favourite daughter, Isabel Clara Eugenia, 
but this was not to be mentioned to the Pope. 
" But if at any time the Pope moved by his zeal 
should talk about any other successor, you will 
remind him, before he gets wedded to his new 
idea, that he is pledged to agree to my choice in 
the matter." 

In the meanwhile Allen, Persons, and the other 
English Catholics, were ceaseless in their steady 
propagation of the idea of Philip's own right to the 
crown, in consequence of the heresy of James, and 
the same view was forced upon Mary Stuart by 
Mendoza and her English confidants in Paris, all of 
whom were pensioners of Spain. At length Mary 
was convinced, and wrote to Mendoza at the end of 
June, 1586, saying she had disinherited her son in 
favour of Philip. 

The full plan of the Armada had now assumed 
definite form. The King was in possession of 
Santa Cruz's marvellously complete estimate of 
cost and requirements of all sorts — a perfect monu- 
ment of technical knowledge and forethought ; the 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 199 

Pope was pledged to find about a third of the 
necessary funds, and to leave Philip a free hand 
with regard to the English succession and the time 
for the carrying out of the enterprise ; whilst 
Philip's position with regard to his claim to the 
English crown was regularised by Mary's will in 
his favour. 

Guise, Beaton, and the Scots had thus been 
routed all along the line, but it was not to be sup- 
posed that they would accept their defeat without a 
struggle. Their next move was within an ace of 
being successful, and nearly changed the whole plan 
of the Armada. In July, 1586, Guise wrote to 
Mendoza that a plan he had long been concocting 
had at last been brought to a head, and Beaton was 
commissioned to tell Mendoza what the scheme 
was. A Scottish gentleman named Robert Bruce 
had been sent to France with three blank sheets, 
signed respectively by Lords Huntly, Morton, and 
Claude Hamilton, which Guise was to fill up over 
the signatures with letters to Philip, appealing to 
him to aid the Scots Catholics. They asked for 
6,000 foreign troops for one year and 150,000 
crowns to equip their own men, and in return 
promised to restore Catholicism, release James and 
his mother, compel the former to become a Catholic, 
and, most tempting of all, to deliver to Philip one 
or two good ports near the English Border to be 
used against the Queen of England. Bruce went 
to Madrid to lay the Scots' appeal before the King, 
but when he arrived the failure of the Babington 
plot and the collapse of the Catholic party in Eng- 
land was known to Philip, and he had lost hope of 
effecting the "enterprise" except with overwhelm- 



200 THE EVOLUTION OF 

ing forces of his own. He did not wish, moreover, 
for Guise's interference, and was coolly sympathetic 
and no more. And yet, in the face of Santa Cruz's 
advice that he should secure some ports of refuge 
for the Armada in the North Sea, the offer of the 
Scots lords to give him two good Scotch harbours 
was one not to be lightly refused, so whilst he sent 
Bruce back with vague promises, he instructed 
Parma and Mendoza to report fully on the scheme. 
Parma was cold and irresponsive. He would give 
no decided opinion until he knew what Philip's 
intentions were. He was apparently jealous that 
he was not taken fully into his uncle's confidence, 
and perhaps angry that his son's claims to the 
English crown, which were better than those of 
Philip and his daughter, were being ignored. But 
Mendoza, an old soldier, the last pupil of Alba, as 
he called himself, was indignant at Parma's doubts, 
and wrote to Philip an extremely able paper 
strongly advising the invasion of England through 
Scotland, instead of risking everything in a vast 
fleet, to which one disaster would cripple Spain for 
ever. In prophetic words he foretold the possi- 
bility of the very catastrophe which subsequently 
happened, and prayed Philip, ere it was too late, 
to close with the Scots lords' offer. But Philip and 
Parma were slow and wanted all sorts of assur- 
ances ; so Bruce was kept in France and Flanders 
for many months, whilst his principals lost hope 
and heart. At last, when they were on the point 
of going over to the Protestant side, on a promise 
of toleration for their religion, Bruce was tardily 
sent back with 10,000 crowns to freight a number 
of small boats at Leith to send over to Dunkirk for 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 201 

Parma's troops, and the 150,000 crowns demanded 
by the lords were promised when they rose. 

During all this time the juggle in Rome was going 
on. Gradually Sixtus was familiarised with the idea 
that Philip could not go to war for the sake of putting 
heretic James on the throne ; then Allen took care 
that he saw the genealogical tree showing Philip's 
claim, and at last, in the summer of 1587, it was 
cautiously hinted to him that, though Philip would 
not add England to his dominions, he might per- 
haps appoint his daughter to the throne. Sanzio, 
Mendovi and the French cardinals were straining 
every nerve to persuade the Pope that the King of 
Scots might be converted, and the Capuchin monk 
Bishop of Dunblane, amongst others, went to 
Scotland for the purpose of forwarding this view. 

The result of Bruce's appeal at Madrid was 
concealed from Guise, but of course he learnt it 
indirectly, and was greatly indignant at his exclu- 
sion from a project of which he was the originator. 
It was really no secret, however, for in July, 1587, 
Father Creighton, sent by Guise, arrived in Rome 
full of it ; he, like other Scotsmen, being in favour 
of James' conversion and his acceptance by Spain 
as King of England. But Allen, Persons, and the 
rest of them soon silenced Creighton, with threats, 
cajolery, and money. 

When Catharine de Medici got wind of the 
business she seems to have thought it a good 
opportunity for getting rid of Guise and check- 
mating Philip at the same time, and urged him 
(Guise) to go himself to aid his kinsman James to 
the crown, in which case she would largely subsidise 
him ; and Guise himself was so incensed at the way 



202 THE EVOLUTION OF 

Philip had treated him that he threatened to divulge 
the whole of Bruce's plot to James, and very prob- 
ably did so. Elizabeth, too, sent young Cary to 
warn James of what was going on, so that when 
Bruce arrived in Scotland the King was fully 
prepared for him ; and although he appeared to 
acquiesce in the hint from Bruce that the Spaniards 
would aid him to avenge his mother, he was now 
surrounded by ministers favourable to the Protestant 
interest, who saw that James had more to hope for 
from Elizabeth than from Philip, and the matter was 
deferred indefinitely. It was late in autumn when 
Bruce arrived in Scotland, too late in the season to 
freight ships, and he suggested that in the following 
summer ships for the transport of Parma's 6,000 
men to Leith should be freighted in Flanders. 
This was impossible — in fact, the long delay whilst 
Philip and Parma were hesitating had ruined the 
project, which was now public and consequently 
impracticable, though Bruce and the Scottish lords 
continued to clamour for Spanish men and money 
until the Armada appeared. And so again Philip's 
want of promptness lost this chance, which might 
have saved the Armada. 

By this time, late in the year 1587, the final plan 
of the Armada had been settled. Parma had received 
his full instructions from Philip some months before ; 
all Spain and Catholic Christendom were ringing 
with preparations for the fray, and the great fleet 
— or what Drake had left intact of it on his summer 
trip to Cadiz — was mustering at Lisbon under gallant 
old Santa Cruz, who was already dying broken- 
hearted at the neglect of his wise precautions, at 
the confusion, waste, and ineptitude which fore- 
boded the crowning disaster. 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 



203 



With the subsequent mishaps and catastrophe this 
study is not concerned. My object has been to 
show how circumstances drove Philip to adopt the 
course he did, both with regard to the invasion itself 
and his claim to the English crown ; and to demon- 
strate that the ostensible prime object of the Armada, 
the conversion of England to Catholicism, although 
undoubtedly desired by Philip, was mainly used as 
a means to his real end — namely, a close political 
alliance with England, without which Spain was 
inevitably doomed to the impotence which eventu- 
ally fell upon her. 




A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 





A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 



(a history of the SUMPTUARY LAWS IN SPAIN.) 



It is a curious reflection that whilst all the serious 
acts and surroundings of civilised life have been 
rendered amenable to the law, whilst the very 
instincts inherent in the nature of mankind have 
been dominated and regulated by authority, utter 
failure has attended the persistent efforts of rulers 
to cope with the trivial follies of fashion, or to limit 
the vanity and extravagance of personal adornment. 
For long ages men, and particularly women, have 
insisted upon making themselves absurd and un- 
comfortable, at great cost and in an infinite variety 
of ways, in obedience to dictates or impulses springing 
from nobody knows where, and have only consented 
to forego each succeeding caprice when the taste for 
it has worn itself out and has given place to another, 
perhaps still more preposterous than its predecessor. 
It has been from no fault of the rulers that they have 



208 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

been beaten in their fight with fashion, for they have 
tried their hardest for centuries. Our Plantagenet 
and Tudor sovereigns made many attempts to regu- 
late the dress and adornment of their subjects, but 
the motive which mainly prompted them was the 
desire to differentiate the classes and prevent the 
humbler citizens from emulating, in appearance at 
least, their social superiors. In a state of society 
which depended upon the subjection of the majority 
by the privileged classes, this motive was perfectly 
reasonable ; as was also the alternative one of pro- 
tecting a particular national industry, which, in Tudor 
times especially, often furnished a reason for the 
imposition of sumptuary enactments ; but both of 
these motives, from their very nature, were neces- 
sarily more or less ephemeral and artificial, because, 
on the one hand, the continual social development, 
the crowing wealth of the traders and the emanci- 
pation of the labourers made the classes interdepen- 
dent ; and, on the other, the extended seaboard of 
England and the maritime enterprise of the inhabi- 
tants made the protection of a particular industry 
by prohibiting foreign competition impossible for 
any great length of time. The attempted inter- 
ference, therefore, of English sovereigns with the 
dress of their lieges was intermittent and spasmodic, 
and was, at a comparatively early period, admitted 
to be useless. 

Such, however, from various reasons was not the 
case in Spain. There the fight against finery was 
kept up persistently for nearly six centuries, 
and hardly a decade passed during that time 
without one or more petty and ridiculous attempts 
being made to interfere with the dress, food 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 209 

personal habits, and surroundings of the people. 
The ostensible motives were usually different from 
those which operated in England. The separation 
of the classes has never been so complete in Spain 
as elsewhere in Europe, owing to the fact that from 
a very early period in the history of the country all 
Christians were banded together and dependent upon 
one another for protection against the common enemy, 
the infidel. Manual industry, moreover, was never 
a strong point with Spanish Christians, and the main 
reason for the various attempts to exclude foreign 
goods was the dread that Spanish gold would be 
sent out to pay for them. Nothing is more striking, 
indeed, than the absolutely murderous effect upon 
Spanish industry exerted by most of the paternal 
attempts at interference with trade, but political 
economy was even more of a dead letter amongst 
that nation of warriors than with our own ancestors. 
The earliest object of the great mass of sumptuary laws 
in Spain was to restrict the dreaded taste for luxury 
and splendour which was felt to be a characteristic 
of the hated Moor, who had been conquered bit by 
bit by people who were content to live roughly, feed 
frugally, and dress plainly. But with victory came 
wealth, with peace came intermixture, and the subtle, 
refined, Oriental blood, with its love of pomp and 
brilliancy, gradually permeated the rough Gothic- 
Iberians, until its manifestations alarmed rulers 
whose power still largely depended upon the self- 
sacrificing frugality and hardy endurance of their 
subjects. Thus it was that the attempt was made 
to keep people frugal and homely whilst they were 
growing rich, and the tendency continued during all 
the centuries that the struggle against Spanish luxury 

15 



210 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

went on, although during the last three centuries of 
the period the original motive had disappeared, and 
the usual excuse for the interference of the King 
with the dress of his subjects was the desire to 
prevent them from spending so much money upon 
themselves, in order that they might spend more 
upon him. 

But, whatever the motives may have been, the 
fight against extravagance was carried on as per- 
sistently as fruitlessly until quite recent times, and 
there exists a mass of information with regard to the 
dress and manners of the people in the Spanish 
sumptuary enactments unequalled elsewhere. The 
decrees usually took the form of a representation 
from the Cortes to the sovereign, setting forth in 
a preamble the particular abuses to be remedied, 
and then proposing a remedy which the sovereign 
usually confirmed by what was called his "pragmatic 
sanction," and the decree was then proclaimed and 
had the force of law. A large number of these 
decrees or "pragmatics" of the highest interest 
will be found in the British Museum manuscripts 
(MSS. Add. 9933 and 9934), and many more are 
set forth in Sempere's " Historia de las leyes sun- 
tuarias " (Madrid, 1788), whilst the familiar and 
festive traditions of old Madrid teem with quaint 
stories of ingenious evasions and jovial defiance 
of the laws under the very noses of the sable-clad 
Acaldes and Alguaciles, whose grave and solemn 
duty it was to clip lovelocks and measure frills 
and furbelows. 

The first vicious extravagance which seizes upon 
a hardy, simple people who find themselves safe 
after a period of struggle is naturally that of 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 211 

gluttony ; and the earliest sumptuary decrees of 
the Castilian kino-s were directed against this 
particular excess. 

In point of date the first decree extant in Spain 
of a sumptuary character was that issued by Don 
Jaime (El Conquistador) of Aragon in 1234. He 
was extremely devout and ascetic himself, and was 
shocked at the growing extravagance of his subjects, 
who having in his remote mountain kingdom finally 
expelled the Moors, turned their attention to tourneys, 
shows, and mimic warfare, at which great sums were 
spent both in feasting and adornment. The Jews 
too, who at the time nearly monopolised Spanish 
trade, encouraged the o-rowinsf taste for the fine stuffs 
and precious ornaments, from the sale of which they 
derived so large a profit. So in 1234 Don Jaime 
decreed from his capital of Zaragoza that no subject 
of his should sit down to a meal of more than one 
dish of stewed, and one of roast meat, unless it were 
dried and salted. As much game as they pleased 
might be eaten, on condition that it had been hunted 

o 

by the eater, but otherwise only one dish of game 
might be served. No jongleur or minstrel might eat 
with ladies and gentlemen, and no striped or bordered 
stuffs were to be worn. Gold and silver, as well as 
tinsel, were prohibited, and ermine and other furs 
were only to be used as a trimming to hoods and 
hanging sleeves. Jaime since his childhood had 
been trying to crush the rising power of his feudal 
nobles, and had already embarked on that long career 
of conquest by which he subdued the Moorish king- 
doms of Majorca and Valencia, so that, although he 
himself was now safe in his mountain realm from 
invasion, his decree was as much prompted by his 



212 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

dread of the softening effect of luxury upon his 
subjects as by his own rough, simple tastes. 

His kinsman of Castile was in worse case, for his 
dominions were more open to the Moor. Saint 
Ferdinand conquered the splendid Moorish city of 
Seville in 1248, where he died four years later, 
leaving his son, Alonso the Wise, to succeed him 
as King of Castile. Oriental luxury surrounded 
the frugal Castilians on all hands. The wealth of 
plundered cities, the spoils of Moslem palaces were 
to be had for the grasping, so that it was natural 
that extravagance in attire and eating should soon 
threaten to soften the Christian conquerors dwelling 
in the midst of the gentler, vanquished Moor. 
Alonso the Wise, in 1256, therefore issued in 
Seville his first great sumptuary enactment. By 
it no saddles were allowed to be covered or 
trimmed with plush. No gold or silver tinsel 
was to adorn them, excepting as a border of three 
inches wide, the saddle itself being of uncovered 
leather. Gold and silver might be used on caps, 
girdles, quilted doublets, saddle-cloths or table- 
covers, but not for draping shields or cuirasses. 
No jingling bells were to be used as trimmings, 
except on the saddle-cloths at the cane-throwing 
tourneys, but even then no device was to be 
embroidered on the cloths. Bosses upon the 
shields were not to be allowed, but the latter 
might be adorned with a painted or gilded-copper 
device. No milled cloth was to be worn, nor were 
the garments to be cut and pinked in fanciful shapes, 
or trimmed with ribbons or silk cords ; the penalty 
for infringing any of these regulations being the loss 
of one or both thumbs by the offender, which of 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 113 

course meant his disgrace and ruin in the career 
of arms. Women were allowed a little more 
latitude, but not much. They might wear ermine 
and otter fur to any extent, but they were forbidden 
to adorn their girdles with beads or seed-pearls, or 
to border their kirtles or wimples with gold or silver 
thread, or to wear them of any other colour than 
white. 

With regard to eating, Alonso the Wise held 
similar notions to those of his neighbour Don 
Jaime, and ordered that his lieges should not have 
upon their tables more than two dishes of meat and 
one of bought game, and on fast days not more than 
two kinds of fish. As if recognising the difficulty 
of enforcing this, the King solemnly undertook to 
comply with his own regulations. Great extravagance 
had arisen in wedding feasts, which were said (as in 
Oriental countries they do to-day) to often ruin the 
contracting families, and Alonso made strict rules to 
limit the excess in this direction. No presents of 
breeches were to be given, and the entire cost of a 
wedding outfit was not to exceed 60 maravedis, 
whilst not more than five men and as many women 
might be invited to the wedding banquet by each 
of the contracting parties. The money spent upon 
marriage rejoicings, indeed, had become so great that 
Alonso made this reform a great point in his decree, 
and provided against evasion by strictly limiting the 
time during which the feast might continue and 
wedding presents be given. Moors were said to 
be dressing like Christians, and this was rigidly 
forbidden. They were to wear no red or green 
clothes, and no white or gold shoes, and their hair 
was to be parted plainly in the middle of the head, 



214 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

with no topknot, whilst they were enjoined to wear 
their full beard, which made the distinction between 
them and the shaven-chinned Christians the more 
marked. The penalties imposed for disobeying this 
decree of 1256 were savage in the extreme, vary- 
ing; from loss of a thumb and a fine for the first 
offence, to death for the third ; but savage as they 
were, they can hardly have been effectual, except 
perhaps in Seville, for only two years later, in 
1258, Alonso came out with a perfect code of 
conduct for his subjects, far too minute to even 
summarise here, but of which some specimens may 
be given, as they served as a model for subsequent 
decrees for many years afterwards. Alonso had 
apparently got tired of his self-denying ordinance 
and says the King may eat and dress as he 
pleases, but agrees to limit his daily table expen- 
diture to 150 maravedis a day, which in spending 
power would represent about ^40 at the present 
time at least. But he orders his " ricoshomes," 
ruling men, to eat more sparingly and to spend 
less money. None of the members of the royal 
household, squires, scribes, falconers, or porters, 
except the head of each department, were allowed 
to wear white fur or trimmings, or to use gilt or plated 
saddles or spurs. They were forbidden to indulge 
in breeches of scarlet cloth, gilt shoes, and hats of 
gold or silver tissue. Priests, it appears, had been 
reducing the size of their tonsures and ruffling in 
fine colours, so as to be undistinguishable from 
laymen, and they are sternly ordered to have their 
tonsures the full size of their heads, gird themselves 
with a rope, and eschew red, green, and pink gar- 
ments. The old regulations about eating were 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 215 

repeated with the addition of one plate of meat 
for supper, and the prohibition of fish on meat 
days. No man, however rich, was to buy more 
than four suits of clothes in a year, and no ermine, 
silk, gold or silver tissue, no slashes, trimmings, or 
pinked cloth might be worn by men. Two fur 
mantles in a year, and one rain-cape in two years 
was the limit of extravagance allowed to a man in 
this direction ; and the King alone was to wear a red 
rain-cape. Lawn and silk for outer garments were 
confined to royalty, but the " ricoshomes " might 
employ them as linings. No crystal or silver 
buttons were to be allowed, nor was shavino- or 
other signs of mourning permitted, except to vassals 
who had lost their overlord and to widows. Jews 
and Moors are cruelly treated in this decree, and 
their offences and those of the poorer classes are 
to be punished by torture or death, whilst those 
of the "ricoshomes" are left to the King's dis- 
cretion. Ermine, vair, and otter furs would appear 
to have been amongst the principal articles of luxury, 
as the wearing of them is very strictly regulated, and 
white furs seem to come next in estimation after 
them. 

For ninety years these laws of Alonso the Wise 
were repeated and reimposed with slight variations, 
but apparently ineffectually ; since in 1 348 the Cortes 
of Alcala made a presentment to Alonso XI. of 
Castile bewailing the luxury and extravagance of the 
age, and proposing a new code of sumptuary rules, 
which in due course the King- confirmed. These 
rules are very interesting because they demonstrate 
the great strides which had been made in luxury, re- 
finement, and civilisation since the issue of the decrees 



216 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

of Alonso the Wise nearly a century before. No gold 
ornaments, no ermine or grebe-neck trimmings, no 
seed-pearl embroidery, gold or silver buttons or wire, 
and no enamels were to be worn except by nobles. 
No gold tissue or silk was allowed except for linings, 
and no man below the rank of a knight might wear 
vair fur or gilt shoes. Even the princes of the blood 
were strictly limited in their dress, and were ordered 
to use tapestry cloth or silk, but without gold or trim- 
ming of any sort. The Spartan wedding regulations 
of Alonso the Wise had now become obsolete with 
the advance of wealth, but the new rules, although 
wider, were to be enforced with equal or greater 
severity. No gentleman was to give his bride 
within four months after marriage more than three 
suits of clothes, one of which might be of gold tissue, 
and one embroidered with seed-pearls to the value 
of 4,000 maravedis, an enormous sum when we con- 
sider that ninety years before 150 maravedis were 
the limit of the monarch's daily expenditure, and 
that at this date, 1348, the value of a sheep was 
only eight maravedis. The bride's trousseau is 
regulated down to the smallest details, and the 
penalty for exceeding them is the loss of one-quarter 
of his land by the too-generous gentleman who does 
so. The decree sets forth that some women are 
wearing trains, " which are both costly and useless," 
but in future they are to be confined to those ladies 
who are travelling in a litter — a privilege limited to 
nobles. All other women are to wear pelisses with- 
out trains, just reaching the ground, "or at least not 
to drag more than two inches upon it." Ladies 
who broke this rule were to be fined 500 mara- 
vedis. Great stress is again laid upon the limi- 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 217 

tation of extravagance in wedding feasts, and burials, 
but the cost still allowed shows to what an excess 
luxury had been carried. The bride's wedding 
clothes might cost 4,000 maravedis and the groom's 
outfit 2,000 ; and thirty-two people were now allowed 
at the weddins: feast. Much more latitude was 
permitted in the use of seed-pearls, gold, and silver, 
to people above the rank of knights, but the princi- 
pal point to be noted in these decrees of Alonso XL 
is the incidence of the penalty. In the decrees of 
Alonso the Wise, as has been shown, the most 
savage penalties were imposed upon the poorer 
classes, whilst the punishment of the nobles was left 
to the King's discretion. But much more even 
justice is dealt out by Alonso XL The nobles who 
break the law are to lose one-quarter of their land, 
the knights one-third, the citizens 500 maravedis, 
whilst the poorer classes for slight offences against 
the sumptuary rules are condemned to lose the 
offending garment and its cost in money. 

But whatever the penalty might be, extravagance, 
checked in one direction, broke out in another, and 
Peter the Cruel, the son of Alfonso XL, only a few 
years after the date of the decree just mentioned, 
issued a complete sumptuary code in which the 
punishments were positively ferocious. Fines, 
scourging, mutilation, and banishment for first and 
second offences, and death for the third, were im- 
posed for the smallest infraction. Peter was par- 
ticularly hard on priests, who were said to be 
swaggering about with women, tricked out in gay 
finery, and they were ordered in future to be sober 
and frugal, wearing no ornaments of any kind, and 
only sad-coloured garb. Workmen, too, were to 



2i8 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

labour from sunrise to sunset for a fixed wage on 
pain of punishment as severe as those imposed by 
our own labour laws. The King, moreover, fixed 
stringently the cost which was to be incurred by 
cities and towns in entertaining him when he visited 
them. The dietary scale appears a pretty generous 
one from the point of view of to-day, consisting as 
it does of 45 sheep at 8 maravedis each, 22 dozen of 
dry fish at 1 2 maravedis a dozen, 90 maravedis worth 
of fresh fish, with pork, grain, wine, &c. ; the total 
value of the feast being limited to 1,850 maravedis. 
Villages and nobles were not to spend more than 
800 maravedis on a similar occasion. 

In 1384 Peter the Cruel's nephew, John I. of 
Castile, was well beaten by the Portuguese at the 
battle of Aljubarrota, and marked his sorrow by 
issuing a decree prohibiting the use in any form of 
dress of silk, gold, silver, seed-pearls, precious stones, 
or ornaments of any kind, and everybody was ordered 
to don a simple mourning garb. When, four years 
after this, John of Gaunt's daughter Catharine came 
to marry the heir to the crown of Castile, she brought 
something else with her besides the wide, pointed 
coif which Spanish widows wore for the next three 
hundred years. Part of her dower consisted of 
great herds of merino sheep, which crossed and 
thrived so well in Spain that the coarse duffel, which 
had been the only native cloth, gave place in a few 
years to beautiful fine woollen textures which could 
vie with those of E no-land and Flanders. 

Intercourse between nations, the growth of wealth, 
the spread of learning, and the advance of civilisation 
were moving with giant strides. The soft arts of peace 
were practised with greater success than ever, now 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 219 

that the Moslem and the Christian were fast merg- 
ing into one people in Seville and Toledo, and the 
refinement of the one was strengthened by the 
energy of the other. Beautiful stuffs, stiff with gold 
and gems, gauzy silk, soft cloths, and fine linens, 
had no longer to be brought from the Moors or the 
kingdoms across the sea. Seville, Toledo, and 
Cordova could produce everything that the most 
luxurious extravagance could desire, and the sump- 
tuary laws for a time were forgotten. 

In 1452 the Cortes of Palenzuela presented a 
petition to John II. asking that the stringent 
sumptuary code of Alonso XI. should be re- 
enforced. The King, in reply, admitted that the 
law was a dead letter, and that the extravagance 
in dress was greater than ever. He says that 
gold tissue and silks are now ordinary wear, and 
that gold trimmings and marten-fur linings are used 
even by people of low estate. " Actually working 
women," he says, "now wear clothes that are only 
fit for fine ladies ; and people of all ranks sell every- 
thing they possess in order to adorn their persons.'' 
Still the remedy proposed to him of a revival of the 
stern code of a hundred years before he saw was an 
impossible one, and the matter was held in suspense. 
He died soon afterwards, and his feeble successor, 
Henry IV., was equally powerless to stem the rising- 
tide of industry and wealth with their natural conse- 
quences. 

In 1469, during the interregnum which followed 
the deposition of Henry, the Master of Santiago 
issued a proclamation deploring the growing 
extravagance of the age, and enjoining more 
moderation. Amongst other similar things it says, 



220 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

" Such is the pomp and vanity now general, even 
amongst labourers and poor people in their dress 
and that of their wives, that in appearance they seek 
to vie with persons of rank, whereby they not only 
squander their own estates but bring great poverty 
and want to all classes." But it was useless : and 
luxury went unchecked until Ferdinand and Isabel 
the Catholic were firmly seated on the twin throne 
of a united Spain and the last Moslem stronghold 
had fallen. Then, in 1495, a "pragmatic" was 
issued which superseded all previous obsolete sump- 
tuary codes and established a new one, which formed 
the model for similar decrees for the next two cen- 
turies. Probably a more economically unwise decree 
under the circumstances was never penned. All 
other previous pragmatics had forbidden the wear- 
ing of extravagant apparel, and this did the same, 
especially severely as regarded the precious metals ; 
but it did more than this. It absolutely forbade the 
introduction and sale of every sort of gold and silver 
tissue, and rendered criminal the exercise in Spain 
of the industry of embroidering or weaving gold, 
silver, and every other metal. The Christianised 
populations of the south of Spain were greatly excel- 
ling already in this industry. Their gold embroi- 
deries on velvet were in great demand for church 
vestments and royal trappings all over Europe. The 
taste for chivalrous splendour was not confined to 
Spain, and the beautiful half-Oriental tissues of 
Andalusia were eagerly sought for in every Court ; 
gold was just beginning to find its way direct to 
Spain from the new-found Indies, and if the industry 
had remained untrammelled there was no reason 
why the country should not have provided the world 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 221 

with textile splendours to its own great advantage. 
The ingenious, industrious people — for they were 
industrious until the strangling of their handicrafts 
made them idle — did their best to avert ruin. In 
1498, only three years afterwards, the Cortes made 
a presentment to the Queen saying that things were 
worse than ever. It was true that gold brocade was 
no longer made and the wicked waste of the pre- 
cious metal was thus avoided, but all sorts of strano-e 
devices and novelties were beino- introduced in the 
manufacture of silks, whereby . the people were 
tempted to squander their money on useless finery. 
The Spanish silk factories were then the finest in 
Europe, and great quantities of raw silk were raised 
in the south-east of the Peninsula : and yet a " prag- 
matic " was issued the next year, 1499, stringently 
forbidding the manufacture, sale, or use of silk, 
except for lining. It was a staggering blow to a 
flourishing industry, and in order to prevent total 
ruin a decree was given that no raw silk from 
abroad was to be introduced into the country, and 
only Spanish-grown silk used. But this was not 
enough, and some of the silk-making provinces, 
reduced to desperation, petitioned for the relaxation 
of the law. Their prayer was granted, as if in 
irony, to the extent of allowing them to wear silk 
against the law. But they did not want to wear 
silk, but to make it for other people to wear, and 
their industry languished, never entirely to recover. 
By the time Isabel the Catholic had died the 
Spanish silk industry was nearly at an end, and the 
skittish young Bearnaise princess, Germaine de Foix, 
who succeeded her as old Fernando's wife, came 
too late to do it much good. It is true she snapped 



222 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

her slender fingers and threw up her pretty chin at 
the straitlaced sumptuary laws, and surrounded her- 
self with silks and velvets, gold brocade and gems, 
wherever she went ; but unfortunately they mostly 
came from the looms and workshops of Southern 
France, and gave no work to Spanish hands. 
Money, of course, had to be sent out of Spain to 
pay for the finery, and in 1 5 1 5 the Cortes of Burgos 
complained of this to Jane the Mad, Isabel's 
nominal successor, who thereupon issued a decree 
entirely forbidding brocades and gold or silver em- 
broidery and trimmings to be worn at all, and 
strictly limiting the wearing of silk in any form to 
people of rank. 

But Jane's power was the merest shadow ; Spain 
was in the throes of a great struggle for its demo- 
cratic institutions, which it lost, and no notice 
was taken of poor Crazy Jane's decree. If she 
understood it she probably had as little sym- 
pathy with it as her young stepmother, for she had 
lived for years with her handsome husband Philip 
as head of the most pompous and splendid Court in 
Europe, in busy Flanders, surrounded by all the 
traditional magnificence of the house of Burgundy, 
and her young son, the coming Emperor Chares V., 
Fleming as he was by birth and instinct, was even 
less likely than she to revert willingly to the simple, 
democratic, and patriarchal traditions of the Spanish 
Court. 

He came to his new country with a whole 
host of Burgundian, Flemish, and German nobles, 
whose taste for finery had never been checked ; and 
whatever decrees Charles might issue for the dress 
of his people, he and his Court were the first to dis- 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 223 

regard the letter and spirit of his precepts. It is 
not to be wondered at, therefore, that they were not 
obeyed for long together by any one else. The 
initiative, moreover, did not come from the Kino- or 
his courtiers, but from the Cortes of Castile, who 
were naturally swayed entirely by Spanish ideas, 
of which Charles had at this time, boy as he was, 
but little knowledge or sympathy. This was so 
clearly recognised that when he was about to leave 
Corunna in 1520 to assume the imperial crown, the 
Cortes held there petitioned him at least to order 
that the sumptuary laws with regard to silks, bro- 
cades, gold embroideries, and gold and silver lace, 
should be strictly enforced during his absence from 
Spain, since they saw that, with such a Court as his, 
they would not be enforced in his presence. But 
the example of the Court had struck too deeply, and 
the fury for splendour had now really taken hold of 
the Spaniards, who in their ages of struggle had 
been so simple and homely. 

In the pragmatic of 1537 it is said that during 
the Emperor's absence the use of brocades, silks, 
and precious embroideries had increased more 
than ever, and they are absolutely prohibited, 
and the rigid law of 1498 again repeated. The 
preamble of the decree of 1537 says that this 
law against gold embroidery was generally evaded 
by making the gold lace and devices separately 
and then stitching them on to the cloth, which 
cost much more even than embroidery would have 
done ; and the making of such adornments was con- 
sequently prohibited altogether. Only nine years 
afterwards, in 1548, the Cortes of Valladolid made 
a presentment to the Emperor saying that things 



224 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

were worse than ever, and the cost of clothes had 
been increased instead of decreased by the ingenuity 
of tailors, who had taken to the plan of cutting out 
the most elaborate patterns of coloured cloth with 
fine scissors and sewing them on to the cloth gar- 
ments, almost covering the latter with delicate lace- 
like snippet work of applied cloth. In face of this 
abuse the Cortes prayed the Emperor to forbid the 
use of any and every sort of trimming, lace, or 
adornment on the garments, both of men and women, 
which might give an excuse for the wicked tailors 
to charge extravagant prices. Charles V. thought 
this too sweeping, but in 1552 he issued a "prag- 
matic " prohibiting the applied snippet work, and 
also the use or manufacture of gold and silver lace 
and ornaments, the wearing and making of velvets, 
silks, and satins being also rigidly limited. Spain, 
flooded with the precious metals from the Indies, 
richer perhaps in actual bullion than ever a country 
was before or since, with home-grown silk in abun- 
dance, and the most deft and tasteful weavers in the 
civilised world, was therefore obliged to import its 
manufactured gold and fine stuffs from abroad, 
whilst its own humbler citizens languished amidst 
the wealth they were not allowed to earn. No 
decrees could prevent rich people from squandering 
their money on dress, least of all when the Emperor 
and his Court were in a constant blaze of magnifi- 
cence. 

Philip II., who in his later years usually wore black 
velvet trimmed with jet or bugles, with the simple 
chain of the Golden Fleece about his neck, was in 
his youth as splendid as his father ; and the prepara- 
tions for his voyage to England to marry Mary 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 225 

Tudor in 1554 included the making of more solid 
magnificence in the way of dress than probably was 
ever made for one event in modern history. His 
son's valet I was of a literary turn of mind, and has 
left us a precise description of the dresses and trap- 
pings made for Philip and his army of courtiers — the 
flower of Spain — in which the language of extrava- 
gance is exhausted. Horse furniture, bed-hangings, 
canopies, quilts, and upholstery, as well as dress, 
were all of satin or velvet covered with gold em- 
broidery and seed-pearls. There were twenty great 
nobles, Spaniards, Flemings, and Italians, each with 
scores of followers, all dressed in silks and satins 
with gold chains. Philip's German bodyguard, even, 
of 100 troopers, wore facings of silk on the gaudy 
red and yellow uniform of Aragon, and the common 
sailors of the fleet had crimson silk caps with white 
plumes. Some few amongst Philip's numerous suits 
may be mentioned as an example of the dresses 
then in vogue, although many of his nobles appear 
to have fully rivalled him in splendour. For some 
years, as has been shown, gold-embroidered dresses 
had been strictly prohibited ; and Mufioz, in his 
description of the sartorial wonders prepared for the 
wedding, mentions the revival of gold embroidery 
as a novelty. Prince Philip had one suit consisting 
of surcoat, doublet, trunk-hose, and jacket of crimson 
velvet covered with little lozenges formed of twisted 
gold chains, the interstices being filled with a run- 
ning sprig of silver braid, the leaves formed of silver 
filigree. The surcoat was lined with silver cloth of 
satin, embroidered in the same way. Another sur- 
coat was of grey satin covered with alternate stripes 

1 Andres Mufioz' MSS., National Library, Madrid. 
16 



226 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

of applied gold chains and silver bugles. It was 
lined with stamped cloth of silver, and the doublet, 
trunks, and jacket were of white satin ornamented 
in the same way. Another " pretty suit," we are 
told, consisted of a French surcoat of black velvet 
embroidered all over with gold and silver bugles, 
the trunks and jacket being of crimson velvet, and 
the doublet of crimson satin with the same em- 
broidery. One of his dresses consisted entirely of 
white silk velvet covered with a costly embroidery 
of gold filigree ; and another had a surcoat of black 
velvet with a border of gold bugles and heavy 
twisted silver cords, the garment itself being almost 
hidden under a closely embroidered running sprig 
in gold, the leaves being filled in with silver filigree, 
and in the spaces between the sprigs were slashes 
of white satin. With this gorgeous coat went a suit 
of white velvet and gold. Precious stones were 
worn at the neck and wrists, and gold chains and 
gems were looped around the hat. Heavy gold 
chains rested on the shoulders, and arms and hous- 
ings flashed with riches inestimable, the spoils of the 
two Indies. 

This will give some faint idea of the fashions of 
a time when the rulers were fruitlessly trying to 
repress extravagance in dress amongst their sub- 
jects. Most of this finery was prepared in the city 
of Valladolid, whence Philip left on his journey, 
and it is not entirely surprising that in the following" 
year, 1555, the Cortes of Castile, sitting in that 
place, boldly presented a petition asking that the 
sumptuary laws should be done away with alto- 
gether. They say that they are entirely a dead 
letter, and are consequently a scandal, as well as 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 227 

being useless and vexatious. Their petition was 
not granted, for Philip and his father still thought 
that all the growing wealth of the country should 
come to them, instead of being used for decking the 
undistinguished persons of private citizens. 

There had been no finer flax than that of Galicia, 
and no better linens than those made from it, but the 
trade had been crippled by the sumptuary restrictions, 
and the business had already fallen into the hands 
of Flemings and Frenchmen, who got paid for their 
stuffs with Spanish gold. The wool industry was 
still more cruelly treated. Thanks to the merino 
stock, the manufactory of fine cloths, serges, and 
friezes had been very prosperous, and Spain could, 
and did, export these textiles largely; but in 1552 
the export of such goods was strictly prohibited, 
and even wool in the fleece might not be sent out 
of the country except on condition that for every 
twelve sacks exported two pieces of foreign cloth 
and one bale of foreign linen should be introduced 
to prevent the export of gold. 

The silk growers of Valencia and elsewhere had 
been ruined, but the looms remained, and the 
weavers attempted to obtain raw silk from Italy 
and FVance. The introduction of raw silk was 
thereupon forbidden, and most of the weavers went 
the way of the growers, to idleness and ruin, or 
across the seas to the Indies. The Cortes of 1555 
saw the evil that was being done and, as usual, 
made a presentment on the subject. They pointed 
out the paralysis of Spanish industry and the large 
sums of coin sent out of the country to pay for 
French and Flemish linens, and ascribed the evil 
to its secondary and not its primary reason. They 



228 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

say flax-growing is neglected and decayed, and 
suggest that public lands, where suitable, should be 
cultivated, and every landowner forced to plant a 
certain proportion of flax on his estate. It was 
useless and absurd, of course, as the sumptuary 
laws limiting the making or wearing of lawns and 
fine linens had killed the industry, and the coarse 
linens were still spun and woven at home ; so 
nothing came of it. 

But the acme of absurdity and political perverse- 
ness was reached in the Cortes of 1552, which 
presented a petition begging that the export of 
manufactured goods of all sorts to the new Spanish 
empire in America should be strictly prohibited. 
They say that the people there are getting their 
money so easily and becoming so rapidly rich, that 
they buy such great quantities of Spanish goods as 
to raise the prices in the Peninsula, "whereby we 
who work here cannot live." 

The Cortes of 1560 reported that the nation was 
fast being ruined by extravagance in dress, and 
begged that a "pragmatic" should be issued for- 
bidding every sort of ornament or tissue in which 
metal entered, and strictly limiting the trimming of 
garments to a plain piping round the edge. This 
pragmatic was duly granted, but during the next 
few years a considerable change was seen. Philip 
had married the beautiful young French Princess 
Elizabeth of Valois, who had been brought up with 
Mary Stuart in that light-hearted court that Bran- 
tome described so well. She had no patience with 
the rigid puritanism and peddling interference of 
stern authority with beauty's armoury, and French 
fashions for ladies became general. A " pragmatic " 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 229 

was published in 1563, ostensibly re-enforcing that 
of 1537 (which, as has been shown, prohibited the 
use of gold lace or embroidery in any form), but 
really relaxing the regulations greatly, for the 
benefit of the ladies. They might in future wear 
sleeves of point lace in gold or silver, gold or silver 
gauze, or silk shot with gold, and their jackets 
might be made of similar stuffs, whilst they might 
deck their coifs, wimples, stomachers, and under- 
linen with as much gold as they pleased. Gold, 
silver, or crystal buttons could now be worn, but 
not on the skirt, and only on the head, bosom, 
bodice, and sleeves ; whilst the hat might be 
trimmed with gold gimp. Some concessions were 
made to their spouses as well, for they were per- 
mitted to clothe their nether limbs in silk hose, and 
their trunks might be slashed and trimmed with 
silk, and, generally speaking, the wearing of silk 
was greatly extended. 

Contemporary writers are full of the great ex- 
travagance in dress which followed this period. 
Moncada says that it was not uncommon for a 
man's dress to cost 300 ducats a suit, whilst the 
abuse of precious stones, both by men and women, 
was carried to a ridiculous excess. Contemporary 
portraits show that things were bad enough in this 
respect in England at the time, but they were much 
worse in Spain. 

Only one year after the proclamation of the 
pragmatic just mentioned, namely, in December, 
1564, another elaborate decree was issued, on the 
pretext that the previous one had left several points 
in doubt, and the authorities had Consequently been 
lax in enforcing it. The decree of 1 563 had said that 



230 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

one year s grace was to be given for garments already 

made, and this concession had served as a loophole 

for the evading the regulations altogether. The 

authorities are therefore ordered strictly to enforce 

the decree ; but the opportunity is taken of elucidating 

doubtful points and still further modifying the severity 

of the orders. It is now explained that the prohibition 

of gold, silver, and silk stitching, gimp, or trimming 

of any sort on the garments, referred only to applied 

trimmings, and was not meant to include the 

weaving of gold or silk threads or stripes in the 

textures, or even the sewing of stripes of silk or 

leather on to the garment, which stripes might be 

bordered by a piping and held by two rows of 

ornamental backstitch on each side, provided that 

no other sort of adornment is used. Silk gimp 

even may be applied on garments for indoor wear, 

whilst silk frogs may be sewn on to overcoats and 

travelling cloaks. Fringes were also allowed on 

horse furniture and harness now, and swordbelts 

and baldricks might be worn as rich as the taste 

and extravagance of the owners cared to make 

them. Some doubt is said to exist as to the 

legality of stuffing the trunk-hose with baize to 

extend them, and whether the slashes might be 

lined with baize for the same purpose, and these 

practices are strictly forbidden, " nor may piping 

be inserted like farthingales, nor may threads, nor 

wires, nor gummed silk be employed to extend the 

trunks unduly, as we are informed has fraudulently 

been done." The previous pragmatic had imposed 

the same penalties for infraction of the decree by 

people in their own houses as in public, which 

appears to have caused much vexation by the 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 231 

invasion of domiciles by inferior officers, on pretext 
of searching for forbidden garments, and the right 
of search was now abolished. 

An attempt to shame ladies into obeying the law 
was made for the first time, of many, in these 
pragmatics of 1563-4 by giving to women of bad 
character the right to deck themselves in pro- 
hibited finery in their own houses. But Madrid 
was already commencing upon the downward 
career which made it for more than a century 
the most dissolute place in Europe, and women 
of rank even were proud of their effrontery, so 
that no attempts to induce them to obey the law 
by appeals to their modesty ever succeeded. The 
brazen-faced impudence of the Madrilenas, which so 
shocked foreigners in the seventeenth century, still 
remains as a cherished tradition of the fast-dis- 
appearing race of majas and manolas of Lavapies 
and other low neighbourhoods of the capital, and 
is encouraged in them as a national trait by their 
social betters. 

In 1568 Philip lost both his beautiful young 
wife and his only son. Defeat and disappoint- 
ment met him on all sides, and his gloom, 
deepened by fanaticism, became heavier as the 
years rolled on. Henceforward he and his Court 
dressed in black, and the fashions of his people 
followed him, to the extent of relinquishing almost 
entirely the use of gold tissues and embroidery on 
their garments. But poor as was the King's ex- 
chequer, and in despite of Drake an'd the buccaneers, 
gold still poured into Spain from the Indies, and 
luxury, if checked in one direction, was certain to 
break out in another. Coaches had been brought 



232 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

by Charles from Flanders when he came to Spain, 
and by the end of the sixteenth century a perfect 
rage for coaches had seized upon the people of the 
capital — a form of extravagance which for the next 
century at least was carried to a ridiculous excess, 
and even now remains the principal foible of the 
Madrilefios. The new taste was supposed to 
threaten the art of horsemanship and the breed of 
horses ; so for some years pragmatics were issued 
ordering that no coach or wheeled litter or chariot 
was to be drawn by less than four horses. To 
encourage men to ride on horseback, doctors, 
lawyers, and licentiates of universities were 
authorised in 1584 to use long housings to their 
steeds, and whilst mules were still to be housed 
with plain harness, horses might be decked with 
velvet saddles, gold and silver fringes, gimp and 
nails, and made as smart as possible, in order to 
encourage their use. 

In 1593 Camillo Borghese was sent to Madrid 
by the Pope, and has left behind him for our en- 
lightenment a minute account of the fashions of his 
day, I by which we may see the effects that had been 
produced by the "pragmatics" we have described. 
" The dress of this country," he says, "is as follows. 
The men wear long breeches, with a surcoat and 
hat, or else a cloak and cap, as it would be a great 
breach of decorum with them to wear a hat and 
cloak together. This costume would certainly be 
very pretty if the breeches were not cut so long as 
to be disproportionate. Some men have taken to 
wearing hose in the Seville style, which they call 

1 " L'Espagne au i6 me et i7 me siecles," par Morel Fatio. 
Paris, 1878. 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 233 

galligaskins, and with these it is proper to wear a 
cloak and hat instead of a cap. The ladies, like 
the men, usually dress in black, and have a veil 
round their faces like nuns, their heads being en- 
veloped by their mantillas in such a way that their 
faces are hardly visible. Indeed if it were not for 
the pragmatic issued by the King on the subject 
they would still cover their faces completely, as 
they used to do a few years ago. When they do 
not wear these veils over their faces, they have 
on collars with enormous ruff pleats. They are 
naturally dark-skinned, but the use of paints is so 
common that they all look fair, and though 
small in stature their high pattens make them look 
tall, so that it may be truly said that all Spanish 
ladies turn themselves from little and dusky to big 
and bright. The main street of Madrid would be 
fine if it were not unutterably filthy and almost 
impassable on foot, and the better class of ladies 
are always in carriages or litters, whilst the humbler 
ones ride on donkey-back or pick their way through 
the mire. They (the ladies) are naturally impudent, 
presumptuous, and off-handed, and even in the 
street go up and talk with men whom they do not 
know, looking upon it as a kind of heresy to be 
introduced properly. They admit all sorts of men 
to their conversation and are not a bit scandalised 
at the most improper proposals being made to 
them. 

"The gentlemen now rarely ride on horseback 
but often go in carriages. They are preceded in 
the streets by a group of pages and a couple of 
servants they call lacqueys, the pragmatic not allow- 
ing them more, although the grandees may be 



234 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

attended by four. The pragmatics only allow 
saddle cloths to be worn from October to March, 
but for the rest of the year velvet saddles may be 
used. The one pastime of these people is to drive 
up and down the Calle Mayor (High Street) from 
midday to midnight." 

The good churchman was much shocked at 
the effrontery of the people and their filthy habits, 
but this branch of the subject is foreign to the 
present article. Rough magnificence, side by side 
with boorish rusticity, seems to have been the 
characteristic of the Spain of Philip II. In the 
same year that Borghese wrote, a very severe 
pragmatic had been issued prohibiting the use of 
silver ornaments on household furniture, which, it 
says, had reached a pitch of extravagance which 
could no longer be endured. Decrees were issued 
in 1586, 1590, and 1594, which are interesting as 
showing that the inevitable extravagance of dress 
had now turned into the direction of the starched 
ruff. " No man," says the last-named pragmatic, 
" may wear either at his neck or wrists on any sort 
of ruff or frill, fixed or loose, any trimming, fringe 
ravelling, or netting, starch, rice, gums, rods, wires, 
gold or silver threads, or any ' alchemy ' or any- 
thing else to extend or support them, but only a 
plain holland or linen ruff with one or two little 
pleats, on pain of forfeiture of shirt and ruff and a 
fine of 50 ducats." Great resistance was offered to 
this, and it was found, somehow or other, whether 
by " alchemy " or what not, the " lettuce-frill " ruffs 
still stood stiffly from the neck, and the Council of 
State gravely considered the matter, with the result 
that the decree of 1594 insists upon the law being 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 235 

enforced, the ruffs to be as described, and not more 
than three inches wide from the band to the hem, 
the colour to be pure white. The penalties for 
infraction were tremendous — for a first offence, 
20,000 maravedis fine, for the second, 40,000, and 
for the third, 80,000 and a year's banishment. 

This was not by any means the only sumptuary 
law promulgated in this year of 1594; a much 
relaxed code of dress was issued with regard to 
gold and fancy silk textures, of which the universal 
use of unadorned black for so many years had 
greatly decreased the manufacture in Spain. 
Women were now allowed to wear fine cloth or 
silk jackets, and cover the seams thereof with gold 
or silver braid or scrolls, whilst their dresses and 
mantles might be trimmed as profusely as they 
pleased with the same ornaments. Doublets, 
jackets, and waistcoats were now allowed to be of 
quilted silk, satin, or taffety ; whilst the trunk hose 
of the men might be slashed, and double-stitched 
at the edge of the slashings. The said breeches, 
moreover, might be stiffened by a single thickness 
of baize and all the fine stuffs used for gentlemen's 
garments could now, for the first time for many 
years, be stamped with patterns. New and more 
severe measures were adopted at the same time to 
keep up the breed of horses, which animals were 
thought to be almost in danger of extinction, as 
horsemanship was less than ever indulged in, and 
mules were preferred for drawing the coaches. 

In the same year, 1594, a curious pragmatic 
was proclaimed dealing with the extravagant abuse 
of honorific titles. It commences in the King's 
name by saying that, although it is unnecessary to 



236 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

make rules for himself or his family, he will begin 
at the top for regularity's sake. The King must 
be addressed in writing simply as " Sir " at the 
head of the letter, which must end with " God 
guard the Catholic person of your Majesty," at the 
bottom. The heir to the crown was to be addressed 
in the same way, but with " Highness" substituted 
for " Majesty," the Princes of the blood being given 
the style of Highness, but "his Highness" alone 
standing for the heir to the crown. The rest of the 
Princes were to be addressed on the outside of a 
letter, " To his Highness the Infante Don So-and- 
so." The titles "Excellency" and "Illustrious 
Sir," which had become very general forms of 
courtesy, were forbidden, and " Most Reverend 
Sir" was only to be applied to Cardinals and the 
Primate of Spain, the Archbishop of Toledo. The 
highest grandees, bishops, and members of the 
Council of State were in future to be addressed by 
the inferior title of " Senoria," or Lordship, whilst, 
out of courtesy and at the option of the person 
speaking or writing, the same title could be given 
alone to Marquises, Counts, Presidents of Councils, 
and Grand Commanders. All letters of every kind 
were ordered to begin at the top with a cross, and 
then to state the business without any address or 
name, ending with " God guard your lordship " — or 
other title — and the date, place, and signature of 
the writer. Absolutely no further compliment was 
to be permitted, no matter what the relationship or 
rank of the parties. As a further attempt to enforce 
simplicity, the same pragmatic provides that in 
future, on pain of a fine of 10,000 maravedis, no 
coronet may surmount any coat of arms, except 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 237 

such as are borne by Dukes, Marquises, and 
Counts. 

The proclamation of this pragmatic caused a 
dreadful fluttering of the dovecotes of the Calle 
Mayor. " Liars' parade " (the raised terrace before 
the church of St. Philip), the favourite lounge of 
the gilded youth, rose in revolt, the cadets of the 
Cordobas, the Mendozas, the Maquedas, the Leivas, 
the Manriques, and the rest of them, who had been 
called " Excellencies " and " Lordships" from their 
cradles, turned like the worm at last. Dress with- 
out gold they might, but they, the sons of Dukes, 
to be addressed with no more ceremony than dust- 
men — perish the thought ! that they would not 
stand. So they and the rest of the rufflers, led 
captains, kept poets, bullies, and blacklegs, swept 
down the Calle Mayor carrying the grave Alcalde 
and all before them. Shops were shut, water was 
boiled to throw out upon the base " Corchetes," 
who dared to call such gallants plain " Mister," and 
the gloomy recluse in the Alcazar at the end of the 
street himself heard the row. When he was told 
the cause of it, he only remarked, so the chronicles 
say : " Bah ! what does it matter to me what they 
are called ? Let them be Lordships, or what they 
will, so long as they serve me well." And the 
pragmatic thus died on the day it was born, for no 
attempt was ever made to enforce it, and " Sefiorias " 
in the Calle Mayor remained as plentiful as black- 
berries in an English hedgerow. 

The isolation of Philip II. in his gloomy old age, 
together with the relaxation of the enactments 
already mentioned against the use of gold and 
silver tissues, had allowed luxury in dress practi- 



238 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

cally to go unchecked during the last years of the 
sixteenth century, and when the King died, in 1598, 
he left Spain, and particularly the capital, in a per- 
fect frenzy of prodigality. The most brazen dis- 
soluteness accompanied the blindest religious 
fanaticism ; the exchequer was bankrupt, the fields 
untilled, the aforetime busy workshops of the south 
silent and abandoned, the people starving or 
flocking across the seas in search of the easily won 
gold that was ruining them ; and when the coveted 
gold came to the few who survived the pursuit, it 
was lavished in insensate waste on the adornment 
of their outer persons — for they always fed frugally 
in that lean land — and most of the wealth left the 
country as fast as it entered it, the idleness it 
engendered being its net result to the country that 
won it. 

For the next hundred years the same pro- 
cess went on. The monarch of Spain and the 
Indies was reduced to beg his subjects in the name 
of charity to provide food for himself and his family, 
whilst the mines of Peru and Mexico were sending 
millions. The splendour of the polished Court of 
Philip IV. was only rivalled by that of his nephew, 
the Grand Monarque, but it was soaked to the core 
in sloth and squalor, whilst the humbler people 
found the purchasing power of gold grow less and 
less as the metal poured in and the workers, dazzled 
by wealth so lightly won, ceased to produce com- 
modities for consumption. Philip III. was a narrow 
bigot without his father's industry or intellect, but 
he was well-meaning and sorely beset, and was 
unequal to the propping up of the great empire into 
which his father's narrow and halting policy had 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 239 

introduced the dry rot. The regulation of dress, 
however, and the repression of profane extrava- 
gance was just the task which appealed to his tastes 
and sympathies, and he set about it as soon as he 
mounted the throne. 

His pragmatic of 1600 was a new departure in 
many things and was the pattern of all similar 
enactments for the next hundred years. It is very 
minute, but a few of its provisions are worth pre- 
serving, as they throw much light on the tastes 
of the time. The King in his preamble sets forth 
that he is informed that the sumptuary pragmatics 
are quite disregarded, and seeing that the great 
excess and extravagance in dress constitutes a 
national scandal which must be moderated, he has 
conferred with his wisest councillors and has de- 
cided to issue a new pragmatic which shall super- 
sede all previous ones. 

To begin with, the following sweeping order 
is given : No one of whatever rank, except the 
King and his children, shall wear any sort 
of brocade or cloth of gold or silver, or stuff 
shot with gold or silver, or silk in which metal is 
woven. No cord, gimp, ornamental stitching or 
quilting, either of silk or metal, is to be permitted, 
excepting on religious vestments and uniforms, and 
no precious stones or pearls are to be worn on 
housings or accoutrements in any shape. There is 
an absolute prohibition of the employment of lute- 
string, twist, ruchings, flat braid, cording, chainlets, 
crewels, cross-stitching, through-stitching, tangle 
trimming, puffs, and any sort of bead or steel 
trimmings ; and the following dress is alone pre- 
scribed : The cape or other over-garment may be 



240 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

of any sort of silk with stripes, on each edge of 

which may be an ornamental stitching. Surcoats 

and ropillas (a sort of half-tight over-jacket with 

double sleeves, the outer ones hanging loose from 

the shoulder) may be also of silk and trimmed in 

the same way, and, if desired, a piping of another 

sort of silk, but not the same, may be put between 

the stripes. The inside of the capes may have 

similar stripes of silk, satin, or taffety, but not 

velvet. Shoulder capes may be made of velvet, 

and the hoods of riding-cloaks or rain-capes may be 

lined with the same. Silk gimp and frogs may be 

sewn on to duffel cloaks, &c. The trunks may be 

worn of any kind of silk, and each slashing may be 

edged with a velvet or silk piping and an "eyelash " 

border. If the slashing is a wide one this edging 

may be worn on both sides of it, but if otherwise 

only on one side. The slashings may be lined with 

taffety. Silk gimp or braid of any sort may be 

worn on the trunks excepting lutestrings or crewels. 

Galligaskins may also be made of silk, but with no 

trimming but a row of gimp on each side and at the 

opening. Dressing-gowns for women and men 

may be of any material or fashion, so long as gold 

or silver is not used. Doublets, ropillas, or trunks 

made of satin may be ornamented by silk stitching 

of any colour, but on no account may the stuff be 

pinked, ravelled, or fringed. The rules generally 

apply to women as well as men, but the former are 

allowed to wear jackets of light cloth of gold or 

silver, which may be trimmed with a braid of the 

same over the seams, and the whole jacket may be 

covered with "whirligigs" or scrolls of gold or 

silver, so long as there is no working in the stuff 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 241 

itself. The frills and flounces of these crarments 
may also be ornamented in the same fashion. 
Hats, belts, baldricks, &c., were all treated in the 
same way ; gold or silver gimp, braid, and lace were 
allowed to be sewn on, but not embroidered or 
woven in, the texture. 

A rather curious point in this decree of 1 600 is the 
distinction in it of different classes of citizens. Thus 
women of known evil life were allowed to wear what 
they liked inside the houses, but were to conform 
to the law in the streets ; pages might dress in silk 
jackets, coats, trunks, and caps, but their capes were 
to be of cloth or frieze ; no lackeys were to have 
silken clothes or velvet scabbards, but they were 
allowed to wear taffety caps. The punishments for 
the breaking the orders seem severe but unequal. 
Offending wearers were to lose the peccant garment 
and pay a sum equal to its value for pious uses, but 
tradesmen who made or sold the goods were to be 
condemned to four years' exile and a fine of twenty 
maravedis for a first offence, double the punishment 
for a second, and the pillory and ten years' exile 
from Spain for a third. All this sounds very severe, 
but there were plenty of ways out of it. For 
instance, garments already made might be worn for 
four years by men and six by women, although they 
were not in accordance with the law. This prag- 
matic was proclaimed with the usual ceremony by 
one of the Alcaldes de Casa y Corte with the sound 
of drum and trumpet in the High Street of Madrid 
on the 8th of June, 1600. The month must have 
been a busy one for the dignified officials in question; 
for during the first fortnight of it decrees regulating 
almost every conceivable subject were issued. The 

17 



242 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

rigid and unpopular decree about courtesy titles was 
superseded, and nearly everybody of position might 
now be called Sefioria. No gold or silver in any 
form was to be used in furniture or household 
decoration, "as the King is shocked at the waste 
of the estates of his subjects in such superfluities, 
and considers it high time that the money were 
employed in useful and necessary things." Velvet 
or silk might be employed in upholstery, but no 
gold or silver except a gold fringe on the edges. 
The same rule applied to the lining of carriages and 
litters, but no silk was to be used on the outside of 
vehicles. 

The regulation of jewellery was just as minute 
and severe, and to judge from that which was 
in future to be allowed, the excess in this 
respect must have been very great, since after 
pages of prohibitions with regard to the fashions 
of jewellery, and the limitation of enamels and 
precious stones, men were still allowed to wear as 
many rings as they liked, chains and girdles of gold 
pieces, sets of cameos mounted in gold, and strings 
of pearls in their caps. The use of silver plate is 
also much limited, but still side-saddles might be 
made of silver, if plain, and the harness and horse- 
cloths covered with the same metal. Here, again, 
the same loophole for evasion was given ; for all 
things already made were exempt if registered 
within six months. 

Attempts were made at the same time, as on 
many subsequent occasions, to suppress the osten- 
tatious promenading up and down the Calle 
Mayor, which grew more scandalous as the years 
went on, until it reached its apogee in the reign 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 243 

of Philip IV., and for which the taste has never 
yet quite died out. No women of loose life were 
to promenade in coaches, nor might coaches be 
hired for the purpose on pain of confiscation. No 
person but a grandee might have more than two 
torches carried before him under penalty of one 
hundred ducats fine, and if any person hired a 
lackey by the day, or for less than a month, he 
was to be put in the pillory and exiled for four 
years. The reasons for these regulations will be 
well understood by those who have studied the 
characteristic picaresque novels of the period, and 
have smiled at the amusing subterfuges adopted by 
impecunious scamps to pass themselves off as noble 
hidalgos, the better to prey upon their fellow- 
creatures. 

Amongst other things Philip III. in his youthful 
zeal tried to deal with the vexed subject of ruffs. 
He made no attempt to stand against starch any 
longer — indeed, to judge from his portraits, no one 
ever wore such stiff or extensive ruffs as he did 
himself, but he sternly draws the line at trimming. 
There must be no lace edges or ravellings ; they 
must be pure white, with two little pleats only, and 
not more than 4J inches wide, half as wide again 
as had been allowed by his father. For the next 
few years pragmatics positively rained in Madrid, 
altering, restricting, relaxing this or the other detail 
of the various decrees ; but all to no purpose 
apparently, for in 1 6 1 1 Philip came out with 
another long proclamation, saying that the extra- 
vagant abuse of dress being worse than ever, he 
has consulted discreet experts and has decided to 
alter the rules. The use of gold and silver thread 



244 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

and foil, and of coloured silks, is more restricted 
than ever, the only exceptions being for church 
vestments and the dresses of officers actually 
engaged in war. In other respects, however, the 
trimmings allowed appear to be exceedingly elabo- 
rate, and in the pragmatic of 1 6 1 1 about a dozen 
different specimen trimmings of trunks alone are 
described with all the finnicking minuteness of 
a modern Court dressmaker's bill ; the sum total 
of it all being that the employment of silk, velvet, 
and other fine stuffs, stamped and plain, was now 
almost unrestricted, whilst bullion was more severely 
forbidden than before, except for ladies' jackets and 
a few of their trimmings. 

Another desperate attempt was made in the 
same year to restrict the unprofitable idling in 
the streets with carriages and an order was issued 
that no new coaches were to be made without a 
license from the President of the Council, and 
no man was to ride in a coach without leave, 
"as the King is informed that gentlemen are for- 
getting how to ride." Women also are to refrain 
from covering up their heads and faces, in order 
that they may be seen and recognised, and they 
may only be accompanied by their husbands, 
fathers, sons, or grandfathers. The girls of a 
family may ride in a coach without the mistress 
of it, and the owners of coaches may be accom- 
panied by a friend, but with this exception no 
coach is to go out without its owner, and may not 
be lent, exchanged, or sold without special license. 

Ruffs had now apparently become general with all 
classes, as a pragmatic was issued in 1611, saying 
that, notwithstanding the former prohibition of the 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 245 

use of long-lawn and muslin for ruffs, frills, and 
collars, poor people would insist upon wearing 
them, and they consequently might now be made of 
those cheaper materials as well as of fine linen. 

In March, 1621, Philip III. died, leaving luxury 
and extravagance in his capital more rampant than 
ever, and Philip IV., a mere boy, at once set to 
work to grapple the evil with as much confidence 
as if he were the first to attempt it. If economy 
had ever been needed it was so now, for the public 
treasury was empty, the people ruined with oppres- 
sive taxation, ecclesiastical extortion and official 
peculation, and the country was rapidly becoming 
depopulated. A curious pamphlet is still in exist- 
ence which contains a series of exhortations 
addressed to the King in the year of his accession 
by a noble member of the Cortes of Castile, setting 
forth the various evils from which the country 
was suffering, and proposing remedies for them. 1 
There is much plain speaking and boldness on 
many matters therein, and, amongst others, on the 
eternal question of sumptuary extravagance. The 
representation on this subject has so direct a bearing 
upon what has already been said as to the inopera- 
tiveness of the pragmatics, that some of it is worth 
transcribing. 

"Your .subjects spend and waste great sums in 
their abuse of costly garb with so many varieties of 
trimmings that the making costs more than the 
garments themselves, and as soon as they are 
made there is a change of fashion and the money 
has to be spent over again. When they marry, the 

1 " Discursos y apuntamientos de Don Mateo de Lison y 
Biedma." Secretly printed in 1622. 



246 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

vast wealth they squander on dress alone ruins them, 
and they are in debt for the rest of their lives ; and 
although this expenditure may be voluntary, it has 
become, so to speak, obligatory, and such is the 
excess that the wife of an artisan nowadays needs 
as much finery as a lady, even though she and her 
husband have to get the money for it by dishonest 
means, to the offence of God. Many weddings, 
indeed, are prevented by the excessive cost and the 
vassals are therefore unable to serve your Majesty 
as they ought. They are unable to pay their debts, 
the costs incurred in the recovery of which still 
further reduce their fortunes. . . . As for collars 
also, the disorder in their use is very great, for a 
single one of linen, with its making and ravelling, 
will cost over 200 reals, and six reals every 
time it is goffered, which at the end of the year 
doubles the cost of them and much money is thus 
wasted. Besides this, many strong young men are 
employed in goffering them, who might be better 
employed in work necessary for the commonwealth 
or in tilling the soil. The servants, too, have to be 
paid higher wages in respect of the money they 
have to spend in collars, which consumes most of 
what they earn, and a great quantity of wheat is 
wasted in starch, which is wanted for food. In 
addition to this, the fine linens to make these collars 
are brought from abroad, and money has to be sent 
out of the country to pay for them. With respect 
to coaches, great evil is caused and offence given to 
God, seeing the disquiet they bring to the women 
who own them, as they never stay at home but 
leave their children and servants to run riot with 
the bad example of the mistress being always 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 247 

abroad. The praiseworthy and necessary art of 
horsemanship too is dying out, and those who 
ought to be mounted crowd, six or eight of them 
together in a carriage, talking to wenches rather 
than learning how to ride. It must be evident how 
different gentlemen must grow up who have all their 
lives been rolling about in coaches instead of riding, 
besides which the breed of horses is deteriorating 
and money is being squandered by the keeping of 
coaches often by people of moderate means who 
can ill afford it but who are over-persuaded by their 
wives, who say that because So-and-so, who is no 
better off than they, have a coach they must have 
one as well, and so the bad example spreads." 

Don Mateo proposed some very drastic remedies, 
and, whether in consequence of this or not, the King 
and his favourite, the masterful Count- Duke of 
Olivares, put their heads together during the first 
few weeks of the reign, and came out with tremend- 
ous series of pragmatics repeating the most stringent 
provisions of the decree of 1 6 1 1 with regard to the 
use of gold or silver, either in dress, furniture, 
saddlery, or upholstery. No trimmings were to be 
allowed of any sort, and no silk capes, cloaks, or 
overalls were to be worn, cloth, frieze, and duffel 
being substituted in those garments. Above all 
Don Mateo's suggestion about the ruffs was adopted. 
No person was permitted, on pain of the pillory and 
exile, to pleat or goffer linen in any shape. Starch 
was placed in the index expurgatoris again, and ruffs 
were to be for ever suppressed in favour of the large, 
square, flat Walloon collar, which fell over the 
shoulders and breast like a bib. 

The expenses of the palace were cut down to 



248 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

a minimum, and Philip himself, the most prodigal 
and lavish of men in after years, went on short 
commons. Amongst other efforts at economy 
made by him one originated a fashion which 
became deeply rooted in the Spanish charac- 
ter, and which the Italian minister of another 
Philip — the Frenchman — a hundred years after- 
wards, said had a large share in making Spaniards 
the leisurely and dignified people they were. The 
wide, falling Walloon collar, with little or no stiffen- 
ing, — as will be seen in portraits of the time — was 
apt to wrinkle round the neck and very soon became 
dirty ; so an ingenious tailor in the Calle Mayor 
submitted to the young King and his brother Carlos 
a new device, consisting of a high square collar of 
cardboard covered with light-coloured silk inside 
and with the same stuff as the doublet outside. By 
means of heated rollers and shellac the cardboard 
was permanently moulded into a graceful curve 
which bent outwards at the height of the chin. 1 
Philip was pleased with the novelty and ordered 
some of the new "golillas," as they were called, for 
himself and his brother. The tailor, in high glee, 
went to his shop to make them, but alas ! heated 
rollers turned with handles and smoking pots of 
shellac were suspicious things in those days, and the 
spies of the Council promptly haled the tailor and 
his uncanny instruments before the President, who 
sagely decided that there was some devilish witch- 
craft behind it all ; and if not — well, the accursed 

1 As first invented, the golilla opened in front, as shown 
in the portrait of Quevedo, facing page 256, but later, 
when the hair was worn long, it was made square in front 
and was fastened behind, as shown in the portrait of Charles 
the Bewitched. 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 249 

things he was making were lined with light blue 
silk in violation of the pragmatic, so he must be 
punished anyhow. A bonfire was made of the poor 
man's stock before his door and he was put under 
lock and key ; but when Olivares heard of it he was 
furious. He and the Duke of Infantado sent for the 
President and rated him soundly as a meddling old 
fool for burning the King's new collars. The Presi- 
dent declared his ignorance that they were for the 
King, but pointed out how outrageous they were in 
shape, and how they sinned against the pragmatic ; 
but he was soon silenced by the Count- Duke, who 
told him they were the best and most economical 
things ever invented, as they did away with the 
need for constant washing of collars, and would last 
ten years without further expense or trouble. 

The golilla "caught on" with high and low. 
It is true that heads had to be carried stiffly and 
turned slowly, but Spanish heads were intended 
so to be used and no complaint was made. No 
more pragmatics against ruffs, moreover, were 
ever needed again, and the costly, cumbrous 
fashion went out for good. This was in 1623, 
the same year as Charles Stuart went on his 
hairbrained trip to Madrid, and during his stay 
all the pragmatics were suspended, in order that 
he might see how splendid the Madrilefios could 
be if left to themselves. They did their best to 
sustain their reputation and the poverty-stricken 
country was again plunged into the maddest vortex 
of prodigality that even dissolute Madrid had ever 
seen, and flaunting Buckingham himself was outshone 
in brilliancy and lavishness by the nobles of Philip's 
Court. The strict law of Charles V. limiting the 



2SO A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

wearing of jewellery and precious stones had been 
re-imposed, but the list of gems displayed, given, and 
received as presents during Charles' visit, and the 
sumptuous dresses worn, has been left on record, 
down to the smallest detail, by one of the King's 
attendants ; * and shows an inconceivable lavishness 
which naturally would, and did, make it difficult to 
revert in Madrid to the severe orders of the prag- 
matics again. 

The tendency of the time, however, was against 
barbaric spendour, and gradually the taste for 
gold and silver tissues and embroideries in civil 
costume was modifying itself, but new extrava- 
gancies sprang up as old ones languished. Philip's 
sister Anna had married Louis XIII. of France in 
1 615 with great pomp, and all the Spanish Court 
had assembled on the historic ford of the Bidasoa 
which marked the French frontier. They brought 
back some new fashions with them, caught from the 
Parisians. Since Charles V., for good reasons, was 
obliged to have his curls cropped at Barcelona, 
Spaniards of all classes had worn the hair short, and 
parted as it is in England at present. The French 
wore it longer and the Spaniards now followed their 
lead. But not all at once. They first adopted the 
mode of having two ugly locks like long, limp 
Newgate-knockers, called " guedejas," hanging 
before the ears, the back of the head being cropped 
and the top surmounted by a twist or curl called a 
"copete." In the early portraits of Philip IV. this 
style of headdress may be seen. 

1 Manuscript of Don Diego de Soto y Aguilar in the Royal 
Academy of History in Madrid, transcript in the author's 
possession. 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 251 

Another fashion brought from France was much 
more objectionable, but took a stronger hold in 
Spain than elsewhere. Round hoop-skirts or far- 
thingales had been common in most parts of 
Europe for over fifty years before, but the new re- 
finement, called a "guarda-infante," was a very large 
farthingale flattened back and front so as to stick 
out inordinately at the sides, particularly at the hips. 
The jaunty Madrilefias added to it a new feature, 
which made it worse than ever, namely, a metal sec- 
tion or facing to the bottom hoop which resounded 
against a similar plate on the heels of their clogs, or 
clanked upon the ground, so that a musical clickety- 
click accompanied them wherever they went ; even 
as it did that aged equestrienne of Banbury famed 
in English nursery lore. As the bold wenches 
minced along they prided themselves upon the 
eccentric or rhythmical effects they produced. They 
would be neither shamed, coerced, nor persuaded to 
abandon the foolish caprice until they tired of it 
themselves, but Don Philip did his best by prag- 
matics to suppress it. In 1639 the famous nomi- 
nation against female extravagance in dress was 
issued, part of which ran as follows : 

" His Majesty orders that no woman, whatever 
her quality, shall wear a guarda-infante ; which is a 
costly, superfluous, painful, ugly, disproportionate, 
lascivious, indecent article of dress, giving rise to 
sin on the part of the wearers and on that of men 
for their sakes. The only exception to this rule 
shall be public prostitutes. 

"No skirts shall consist of more than eight yards 
of silk or a proportionate quantity of other stuff, nor 
shall they measure more than four yards round ; the 



252 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

same rule shall apply to polonaises, over-skirts, hen- 
coop skirts and petticoats. 

"No woman wearing shoes shall have a bottom 
hoop, farthingale, or anything else in the skirt for 
the purpose of making a noise, and bottom hoops or 
farthingales shall not be worn except with pattens 
at least five inches high. 

"No woman shall wear low-cut bodices except 
women of known evil life. Any person guilty of 
infraction of this pragmatic shall lose the offending 
article of dress and pay a fine of 20,000 maravedis 
for the first offence, and for the second double that 
amount, with exile from the Court." 

The unfortunate dressmakers who made the 
garments were to be much more severely punished 
than the fair wearers, and four years' penal servitude 
was their sentence for a second offence. 

The offended Madrilenas did not put up tamely 
with such tyranny, and, led by three frisky damsels, 
the daughters of a famous judge, they came out the 
day after the pragmatic was proclaimed, swaggering 
and jingling up and down the Prado in the widest 
guarda-infantes, the most outrageous farthingales, 
and the noisiest of hoops ; and dared the scandalised 
alguaciles to touch them, since they could hardly 
arrest all the rank and beauty of the Court ; and the 
fair ones practically had their own way, for Philip 
only issued a grave and sorrowful remonstrance 
against the indelicacy and expense of their con- 
stantly changing caprices, and begging them to 
conform to their duty. But they pleased them- 
selves as usual, although it is said that their three 
fair ringleaders did no go quite scot-free, as their 
father the judge, scandalised that his own daughters 






A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 253 

should be the first to break the law, condemned 
them to dress in nun's garb of the coarsest frieze. 
Nothing daunted, the recalcitrant " Gilimonas," I as 
they were called, managed, with nods and winks 
and frisking skirts, to look more deliciously provo- 
cative than ever in their penitential garb, and their 
pastors and masters were glad enough to get them 
back again into their clicking farthingales to avoid 
the scandal. 

Nor were the o-allants of the other sex more sub- 
missive about their lovelocks. An order was pro- 
claimed at the same time, saying, "His Majesty 
orders that no man shall wear a topknot, or love- 
lock before the ears, or any curls upon his head 
— and barbers who dress the hair in this fashion 
shall be fined 200 maravedis and be imprisoned for 
10 days." Men who wore the offending curls were 
to be excluded from Court and all public offices. 
" Liars' Parade" was as much upset about this as 
about titles, and made a desperate attempt to resist. 
It was in the very heyday of poetry in Spain — 
Calderon, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and a host of 
others were for ever firing off poetical squibs and 
satires at the foibles of the age, the " Liars' Parade " 
being the central exchange for the "good things" 
of poets, big and little, from the monarch down- 
wards. A cloud of barbed poetical arrows from 
scores of poetical bows were consequently shot at the 
royal decree against topknots and guedejas ; and 
ridicule and satire were poured out unsparingly 
upon those who were responsible for it. But to be 
shut out from the presence of king and ministers, 
to have the public service closed against them, was 
1 Their father's name was Gil Imon de la Mota. 



254 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

too hard to be borne by the noble swaggerers and 
kept poets of the Calle Mayor, so they gave way 
and took to the long, lank, straight hair all round, 
which Philip himself wore for the rest of his life, 
though others, particularly away from the Court, 
still clung to the guedejas and short backhair. 

When Philip IV. had been gathered to his 
fathers in the jasper vault of the Escorial, and his 
sickly son had married a French princess, Spain 
began to conform its fashions to those which ruled 
in the Court of the Roi-soleil, but somehow the 
three-cornered plumed hat, so general in France 
and England, never became popular in Spain. The 
large flap-brimmed hat with feathers still lingered 
when the Queen Regent Mariana, during her 
rivalry with her bold step-son, Don Juan Jose of 
Austria, raised a regiment of Swiss and German 
mercenaries. These soldiers wore a very broad- 
brimmed hat, flat all round, and slightly turned up 
at the edge, much like the wideawakes of to-day. 
This hat caught the fancy of the Spaniards, who 
dubbed it "Chambergo," a Spanish variant of 
"Schomberg," after whom the regiment was 
called, and this hat has to this day never lost its 
hold upon the Spanish populace, although they 
had to raise a revolution to keep it, as will be 
related presently. 

A very absurd craze at the end of the seventeenth 
century, which official remonstrance was powerless 
to put down, was the universal wearing of great 
horn-rimmed spectacles, such as may be seen in 
the portrait of Quevedo, facing page 256 ; men and 
women of fashion insisted upon wearing these ugly 
appendages, whether they needed them or not, and 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 255 

literary fashion though it was in a litterary age, much 
sport was given to the poetasters in attacking it. 

By the time Charles the Bewitched had grown up r 
French fashion ruled in Madrid, with the sole excep- 
tions of the golilla (somewhat changed in shape to 
suit the long backhair) and the round-brimmed hat, 
which resisted all attempts to displace them ; but 
the old vice of extravagance still continued in spite 
of changed fashions, and in 1674 a pragmatic was 
issued deploring again the costly excess hi dress, 
the abuse of adornment of equipages, and the idle 
luxury of the time. The severe decrees of Philip 
IV. are re-enacted, and a code of permissible dress 
laid down, in which velvets, silks, satins, taffeties, 
of all colours, stamped and plain, are allowed, but 
foreign textures are to be equal in weight and fine- 
ness to Spanish goods. 

The pragmatics now, however, had altered their 
tone. They were exhortatory rather than commina- 
tory during the last years of the House of Austria. 
A change came with the advent of the first Bourbon 
Philip V. The Spaniards were sensitive, and resented 
the inferiority implied by the adoption by the Court 
and society of the French fashions, high heels, wide- 
skirted coats, full-bottomed wigs, and the rest ; so 
the mass of the people clung to their cropped back- 
hair, their broad-brimmed hats, long cloaks, and 
above all their stately stiffened "golillas." Philip 
was too wise to run atilt against the o-olilla at first, 
and indeed adopted it himself, as may be seen in his 
portrait as a youth in the Louvre. But he wrote 
an anonymous pamphlet against it, and lost no 
opportunity of pointing out its unfitness for working 
people and soldiers. Alberoni, with his caustic 



256 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

Italian wit, was for ever sneering at it, so that when 
Philip abandoned it and took to a collar and white lace 
cravat public opinion was prepared for the change and 
the golilla fell, after a reign of a hundred years. 

When Philip was firm upon his throne after his 
long struggle, he issued a pragmatic, in 1723, 
once more trying to stem the tide of extravagance, 
precisely as if it had never been tried and failed 
before. No gold or silver either in texture or 
trimming was to be worn. No gold, glass, pearl, 
or steel buttons were to be allowed. No precious 
stones, real or false, might be used in trimming or 
fastenings, there were to be no foreign ornaments, 
and sham gems and jewellery were strictly prohibited. 
No silk might be worn but such as was of Spanish 
manufacture. Servants were to be clothed in plain 
cloth and woollen stockings, and no person but a 
grandee was allowed to keep more than two lac- 
keys ; and no silk was to be used on harness or 
the outside of coaches. No person might drive 
more than four horses in the capital, and no lawyer, 
notary, or tradesman was permitted to keep a coach. 
Doctors and priests alone might ride a pacing mule, 
all other men were bidden to mount horses only. 
Artisans and workmen were to dress exclusively in 
baize, serge, or frieze ; their cuffs alone might be of 
silk. The pains and penalties in this great prag- 
matic were many and severe, but the decree aimed 
at doing too much. So many fine and delicate 
doubtful points arose with regard to its provisions, 
that for years after fresh proclamations were con- 
stantly being made to elucidate this pragmatic of 
1723; and through the many loopholes offenders 
escaped, and the act became a dead letter. 




TELAS QTJEZ, Error. 

FRANCISCO DE QUEVEDO VILLECAS 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 257 

Indeed, sumptuary laws were already growing 
out of date, even in Spain ; the courtiers copied 
the latest fashions from Paris, and the common 
people, more out of patriotism and mute resentment 
than anything else, made their cloaks longer and 
longer and their hats wider and wider. The long 
ends of the cloaks had to be put out of the way 
somehow, so they were thrown across the face to 
the opposite shoulder, and, what with the broad- 
brim over the brow and the cloak over the mouth, 
none of the face was seen but the eyes. 

Spain during the greater part of the eighteenth 
century had the ill-fortune to be governed by foreign 
ministers, mostly Italians, and one after the other 
they tried to cut stubborn Spain to the same pattern 
as the rest of the world. The more they tried the 
more sulky and determined became the people, and 
it resolved itself into a national article of faith to 
resist all change ; things Spanish being better than 
things elsewhere. When Philip's younger son, 
Charles III., came from Naples to rule them he 
brought with him his Neapolitan ministers. Gri- 
maldi said that the Spaniards all looked like con- 
spirators slinking about in the darkness with their 
covered faces. An attempt was made to light the 
streets with oil-lamps, but the people resented such 
a foolish foreign fad, and smashed the lamps as fast 
as they were put up. The offenders could not be 
identified with their covered faces and slouch hats, 
so the King was persuaded by the Marquis of Squil- 
laci (Esquilache, as the Spaniards called him) to 
issue a new pragmatic. Its tone was more one of 
sorrow than of anger. The King was shocked for 
foreigners to see such a boorish fashion in his 



258 A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 

capital, and had determined that in future no long 
cloaks or round-brimmed hats were to be worn. 
Either a short cape or a skirted coat was allowed, 
and men might wear either their own hair or a wig, 
but they must cover it with a three-cornered hat 
and not a Chambergo, and the face must not be 
hidden in any way. 

This order was proclaimed on the 4th of March, 
1766, and police were posted in the principal 
places with shears to curtail cloaks and lop hat- 
brims. It happened that a man pursued by 
alguaciles for wearing the forbidden garments took 
refuge in the precincts of the church of the Trinity, 
where he was followed by the officers and beaten, 
in defiance of sanctuary. An infuriated crowd 
collected and overpowered the authorities, who 
were dismayed at the feeling evinced, and withdrew 
their men. For the next few days men all over 
Madrid ostentatiously flaunted their cloaks and 
broad-brims before the barracks and police posts, 
and there is no doubt that the feeling was taken 
advantage by politicians for their own ends to goad 
the people to fury against the Italian ministers. 
Matters came to a head on the 23rd of March, 
when a soldier attempted to seize a man with his 
face covered. A crowd, ready for mischief, collected 
immediately, and the authorities were overpowered. 
The mob swept up the Calle de Leon across the 
Calle de Alcala to Squillaci's house (the famous 
" house with the seven chimneys " ) which they 
wrecked, although the minister had fled. With 
broad-brimmed hats on the top of poles they scoured 
the streets, making all men they met uncock their 
hats. Overpowering all resistance, they assembled 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 259 

before the palace. The guards used force in vain, 
and that night the capital was in the hands of the 
mob. The gaols were opened, houses wrecked, 
foreigners assailed and killed, the King's Walloon 
Guard especially being singled out for vengeance. 
Squillaci and Grimaldi had fled, and the Spanish 
ministers, either out of timidity or sympathy, prac- 
tically sided with the rioters. The rising spread 
rapidly to the provinces, old grievances were raked 
up again, and a dangerous revolution was in pro- 
gress, when the King surrendered unconditionally. 
People were to wear what they pleased, food and 
oil were to be reduced in price, and the Italian 
ministers were smuggled away, never to return. 

That practically ended the fight for sumptuary 
control. Finery was triumphant in the long 
struggle, and the strong arm of authority was 
obliged to confess itself powerless to dictate on the 
question of personal adornment. Half-hearted 
attempts were made after this to interfere in sump- 
tuary matters by Spanish sovereigns, but the effects 
of their decrees were hardly felt outside their own 
households. In 1780, for instance, a pragmatic as 
severe in form as ever was issued, minutely regu- 
lating the wearing of mourning and prohibiting 
mourning coaches, but little notice was taken of it 
after the first few weeks ; and later still a curious 
mild little decree was issued by Charles IV. limit- 
ing the number of dishes which, according to 
custom, many officials were entitled to receive daily 
from the royal kitchens. It is a long drop from 
Alfonso the Wise to the silly dodderer who handed 
over his kingdom to Napoleon because his son had 
offended him ; but the same feeling, almost the 



260 



A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY. 



same phraseology, pervades the first pragmatic we 
have quoted and the last. Both deplore the lavish- 
ness and luxury of the people, and exhort them to 
correct the excess and superfluity which charac- 
terises their tables ; and in both of them the King 
promises that he himself will rigidly conform to his 
own decree and reform the extravagance of his 
private repasts. 

Custom, taste, and perhaps necessity, have done 
what five hundred years of "pragmatics" failed to 
do. The Spaniards are the most sober and frugal- 
feeding nation in Europe, and certainly do not 
exceed in the matter of gaudy or ostentatious 
raiment. The only traits left to them perhaps by 
the extravagant old fashions we have described, 
are their consuming love for driving about the 
streets in a fine carriage, however much they may 
stint in all else ; and the grave stiff-necked dignity 
which a century of the golilla left behind it. 




A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 






A PALACE IN THE STRAND.' 

Probably not one person out of a thousand of those 
who hurry along the busiest part of the Strand 
notices even the existence of a closed iron gate by 
the side of a public-house opposite the Vaudeville 
Theatre. If you peer through the grating you will 
only see a dark, narrow court, now blocked up by the 
building operations connected with the Hotel Cecil, 
and you will have no difficulty in coming to the 
conclusion that this avenue, which has been gradu- 
ally going down in the world for the last two 
centuries, is destined before very long to be blotted 
out altogether. For this was an important thorough- 
fare once, called Ivy Lane, one of the three public 
roadways by which access was obtained from the 
Strand to the river and the boats, the other two 
being Milford Lane and Strand Lane, the entrance 
to which latter still exists, a mere passage between 
two shops opposite Catherine Street. Down the 
centre of Ivy Lane ran a brook, over which the 
roadway of the Strand was carried by a bridge 
called Ivy Bridge. This lane, which separates the 
liberty of the Duchy of Lancaster from the city of 

1 The Fortnightly Review, September, 1893. 

263 



264 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

Westminster, ran sloping down to the river between 
the garden walls of two of the great Strand palaces 
which, erected, as they all were at first, by bishops, 
were subsequently grabbed by kings and courtiers 
for their own use. To the east stood, on the Savoy 
demesne, the house of the Bishop of Carlisle, which 
was granted to the Elizabethan Earl of Bedford, 
and subsequently came into the possession, by 
exchange, of Robert Cecil, afterwards the first Earl 
of Salisbury, second son of the great Burleigh, 
whose own house stood nearly opposite, on the site 
of Exeter Hall ; and on the west, covering all the 
space now occupied by the Adelphi as far as Coutts' 
bank, there rose the ancient mansion which for 
centuries was the town palace of the prince-bishops 
of Durham, known to history as Durham Place. 

In the lawless times, when these mansions were 
first founded, it would have been dangerous for any 
but ecclesiastics to have resided outside of the 
protection afforded by the City boundaries, and so 
it came about that all the way from the Temple to 
Whitehall, along the banks of the silent highway, 
which then was the principal thoroughfare of Lon- 
don, there ran a string of bishops' palaces and 
religious foundations. Their outhouses and stable 
gates opened on to the rough country road we still call 
the Strand — a road which even in the time of Mary, 
we are told, was filthy and unseemly, and remained 
so, indeed, until the great nobles made these palaces 
their homes. Many books have been written about 
the Aldelphi and its site, and Durham Place, which 
was by far the most important of the Strand palaces 
until the Protector built Somerset House, has come 
in for its own full share of notice, but the writers 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 265 

upon the subject have copied each other with 
slavish fidelity", errors and all. The same set of 
facts and assumptions has invariably done duty in 
all descriptions of Durham Place. I wish in the 
present article to break new ground, and relate 
some hitherto unnoticed episodes in its history. 

Stow has not much to tell of Durham Place, except 
of the great festival of 1 540, when the future rivals, 
Dudley and Seymour, with Poynings, Carew, King- 
ston, and Richard Cromwell, challenged all Europe 
to a tourney, and held open house with regal lavish- 
ness for a week at Durham Place, lent to them for 
the purpose by the King, who rewarded each of 
them, moreover, with an income for ever of a 
hundred marks a year and a house out of the 
plunder of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. 
The State Papers now and again give us a ray of 
side-light on the history of Durham Place. We 
know how Somerset granted it to Elizabeth for her 
life after he had beheaded his brother, who there 
had coined the doubloons with which he thought to 
bribe his way to the throne. We know on Somer- 
set's fall how jealous Northumberland gave to the 
Princess the great unfinished palace of the dead 
Protector, and took for his own town house Durham 
Place, in which, although it was nominally hers, she 
had never lived. We know something, but not 
much, of the fastuous splendour of Dudley's life 
during the three years he lived here, of Jane Grey's 
ill-starred wedding in the house, of the plotting of 
her father-in-law, verily a lath painted like a sword, 
and the weaker time-servers around him, to per- 
petuate their rule and confirm them in their ill- 
gotten gains, of the pitiably crumbling down of the 



266 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

house of cards when the supreme moment came ; 
and how Northumberland went forth from the 
Tower to the scaffold, never to see Durham Place 
again, hoping in his craven soul, till the axe fell, 
that his abject recantation would purchase his 
worthless life. 

The Egerton Papers (Camden Society) tell 
us somewhat in detail of the arbitrary expulsion 
of Raleigh from Durham Place, where, by the 
grace of his mistress, he had lived happily and 
splendidly for nearly twenty years. These facts 
and some others in the subsequent history of the 
house are recited by every writer who has touched 
upon the subject, and I have no desire to repeat at 
length incidents which are already well known. 
One error into which most writers have fallen has 
been to jump at the conclusion that whenever 
recorded history is silent on the subject of Durham 
Place, the house reverted to the possession of the 
See of Durham. Such does not appear to me to 
have been the case. It is usually asserted that 
Henry VIII. first took possession of the house by 
forcing the Bishop, Cuthbert Tunstal, to exchange 
his palace for some other property. This is founded 
on Stow's statement that Cold Harbour, in Thames 
Street, was granted to the Bishop because of "his 
house near Charing Cross being taken into the 
King's hands, Cuthbert Tunstal was lodged in this 
Cold Harbour." It is certain, however, that Kathe- 
rine of Aragon lived here during her widowhood, 
before Henry VIII. came to the throne, as many of 
her letters to her father in Spain are in existence 
dated from this house, ranging over several years 
prior to her marriage with Henry in 1509. On the 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 267 

very year of Mary's death Cuthbert Tunstal wrote 
a letter * to Cardinal Pole thanking him for obtain- 
ing for him the reversion of the house ; l and it is 
usually assumed from this that he actually entered 
into possession of it. But he did not ; and it is the 
story of Durham Place during this time, namely, 
the last years of Mary and the first few years of 
Elizabeth, that I wish to tell. 

The historians of the house generally make short 
work of the matter by saying, "When Elizabeth 
came to the throne Tunstal was again driven from 
this house, and about 1583 Elizabeth granted it to 
its greatest tenant, the glorious Raleigh." 2 In all 
probability Tunstal only lived in the house a short 
time if at all. He was appointed to the See in 1530, 
and in 1540, as we know by Stow's description of 
the already-mentioned festival, Durham Place was 
a royal house, and so it remained until 1603, when 
Lord Salisbury used Toby Matthew, Bishop of 
Durham, as his catspaw to claim it, in order that he 
might filch the best part of it — the Strand frontage 
— for himself, which he did to his own great profit. 
In any case, it is certain that Tunstal never got the 
house back again from Mary or Cardinal Pole, 
whatever promises may have been made to him. 

Of the few Spanish nobles of high rank who 
stayed with Philip II. during the whole of his 
residence in England after his marriage with Queen 
Mary, one was Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, Count 
de Feria, a prime favourite and close friend of 
Philip. This nobleman had fallen deeply in love 
with Miss Jane Dormer, one of Mary's maids of 

1 Calender of State Papers, 1547-1580, p. 105. 

2 " The Adelphi and its Site," by H. B. Wheatley, F.S.A. 



268 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

honour, and married her, and although the secret of 
the union had been well kept, circumstances made it 
necessary to openly avow it before the King and 
his suite left London for Flanders in September, 
1 555- Feria was again in London with the King in 
March, 1557, for a few months, but in January, 
1558, he came back in another capacity. The war 
was going badly for Philip and England. The 
French had taken Calais, and Guines was on the 
point of falling ; if the contest was to be carried 
on at all more money and more men must be 
squeezed out of unwilling England, or otherwise 
peace must be made, with England for a scapegoat. 
Philip could not come himself, so he sent his 
haughty, overbearing favourite Feria as his ambas- 
sador to bully and bribe the English courtiers and 
coerce the sorely beset Queen. He came with a 
large train of servants and with great magnificence ; 
his English wife, a country knight's daughter only 
as she was, as proud as himself ; and he was granted 
the use of Durham Place, furnished from the Queen's 
own house, as other great ambassadors had been 
granted it before him. Egmont had been lodged 
there with his splendid train in January, 1554, when 
he had come to offer Philip's hand to Mary. 
Chatillon, the French ambassador, too, had been 
given the use of the house during his short embassy 
in 1550, so that there was nothing extraordinary in 
the granting of the house to Feria. Only that 
former ambassadors had stayed for a few weeks, 
whereas Feria and his successor remained in posses- 
sion for five years and a half, and made of Durham 
Place a trysting-place for treason during the most of 
that time. 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 269 

Whilst Elizabeth was striving against terrible 
odds with all her subtle statecraft to lay the 
foundation of a united nation on the broken ele- 
ments of civil and religious discord, her task was 
hourly rendered more difficult by the plots hatched 
in her own house at Durham Place. All the dis- 
affected and discontented found a welcome there ; 
emissaries from Shan O'Neil flitted backwards and 
forwards at night by the river gate. Stukeley 
whispered here his willingness to desert with the 
Queen's ships to the King of Spain, and here Haw- 
kins himself humbly begged to be bought. Lady 
Sidney, Robert Dudley's sister, Dudley himself, 
Arundel, Lumley, Montague, and Winchester found 
in the secret rooms at Durham Place open but dis- 
creet ears to listen to their plans for preventing the 
establishment of Protestantism in England, and for 
bringing the country again under the sway of the 
Pope. Madcap Arthur Pole appealed first to Dur- 
ham Place when he wanted aid for his silly plot in 
favour of Mary Stuart, and long-headed Lethington 
came at dead of night by the silent river on a 
similar but far more serious errand. The publica- 
tion of the correspondence of the Spanish ambassa- 
dors in England durino- the reiom of Elizabeth 
(Rolls Series) adds many interesting pages to the 
history of Durham Place, and renders the memories 
of the house more important than ever to the 
students of the Reformation period in England. 

Feria arrived in London and took up his resi- 
dence at Durham Place on the 26th of January, 
1558, having, as he says, lingered on the way in 
order not to bring the unwelcome news of the 
surrender of Guines by the English, which news 



270 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

had crossed the Channel with him. In addition to 
Durham Place, where he and his household were 
lodged, he had the same privileges as to an apart- 
ment in the Queen's palace as those which apper- 
tained to an English Privy Councillor — privileges 
which he tried hard to have confirmed to him by 
the new Queen when Mary died, in order, as he 
says, that he might keep his foot in the place and 
spy out what was going on. But Elizabeth and 
Cecil knew full well what his object was, and were 
quite shocked at the idea of the representative of a 
possible suitor for her hand sleeping under the same 
roof as the maiden Queen, so Feria had to depend 
upon his paid agents in the palace, and even in the 
Council itself, to bring him news to Durham Place 
of what was going on. 

With the evidence now before us we can 
form an approximate idea of the appearance of 
Durham Place at the time. The Strand was 
a rough, unpaved road, with a fringe of shops and 
taverns on the northern side, whilst on the 
south side were the back walls and outer courts 
of the riverine mansions. The principal land gate- 
way of Durham Place stood exactly opposite the 
spot now occupied by the Adelphi Theatre. The 
English custodian or porter, who was in the pay of 
the Queen, had his dwelling just inside the gate, 
where he could spy those who went in and out on 
the land side. On each side of the gate in the 
outer courtyard were stables and outhouses, and in 
and around the gateway in the street were benches 
where idlers and hangers-on sat and lounged through 
the day gossiping, in various tongues, and boasting 
of the prowess of their respective countrymen. On 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 271 

the other side of the street, nearly opposite, was a 
tavern called the "Chequers," 1 which drove a roaring 
trade with the men-at-arms, Court-danglers, and 
serving-men who were constantly passing to and from 
Whitehall and St. James'. Opposite the gateway, 
across the large outer courtyard, was the door of the 
great hall, generally standing open for the neigh- 
bours to pass through 2 it to the inner or smaller 
courtyard, in which stood a water conduit fed by 
a "spring of fairwater in Covent Garden." 3 Be- 
yond this inner courtyard stood the house itself at 
the bottom of the slope on the bank of the river 
at the spot now occupied by the arches that support 
Adelphi Terrace. It was a castellated structure, 
with its water-gate placed in the middle of the 
curtain between two turrets, and leading not, as 
usually was the case, through a garden, but straight 
from the steps into the house itself by an enclosed 
pent-house doorway. The domestic offices, and 
probably the chapel, were on the ground floor, but 
the principal dwelling-rooms were all upstairs and in 
the turrets. Aubrey, in his letters (vol. iii. 573), 
thus speaks of Raleigh's occupancy of one of these 
turrets : " Durham House was a noble palace. After 
he came to his greatness, he lived there or in some 
apartment of it. I well remember his study, which 
was on a little turret that looked into and over the 

1 It was afterwards called the " Queen's Head," and here Old 
Parr lodged when he came to London. 

2 In the next century, when the Strand front was built over, 
the parishioners wanted this hall for a church for St. Martin's 
parish, the hall, they said, being only used as a passage. 

3 A century later the water of this spring was found to be 
foul, and, as its source had been forgotten, an examination 
was made. The spring was rediscovered under a cellar of a 
house in Covent Garden. 



272 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

Thames, and had a prospect which is as pleasant as 
any in the world." 

The water-gate of the house was not the only 
approach to the river, as there was a space with 
trees on each side of the house, with a dwarf wall 
fronting the water, and a descent on one side by 
which the neighbours were allowed to get water 
from the stream for washing and similar purposes. 
It will thus be seen that the only really private part 
was the house itself between the inner courtyard and 
the river ; the great hall and both courtyards being 
practically open to the public under the supervision 
of the custodian at the outer gate, who was respon- 
sible only to the Queen, and was a constant source 
of friction with the foreign occupants of the house. 

Feria stayed at Durham Place until August, 1558, 
taking an active part in the distracted Councils of 
the Queen ; and then, having found that Mary's 
hopes of an heir were again fallacious, and having 
bullied and frightened the Queen and Council into 
raising all the money they could beg or borrow for 
Philip's service, he went back to Flanders, leaving 
his English wife in London, with a Flemish and a 
Spanish ambassador of lower rank than himself to 
represent his master. But when Mary was known 
to be dying, he posted back again to be on the spot 
when the great change took place, and Durham 
Place was avoided like a plague-spot thenceforward 
for many days by the courtiers and time-servers who 
wished to stand well with the new Queen. 

The proud Spaniard repaid distrust by bitter 
resentment, and soon found that his arrogance made 
him unfit instrument for cajolery. So he sent for 
a softer spoken diplomatist to act as his " tender, 



, 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 273 

and the wily, silken Bishop of Aquila became his 
guest at Durham Place. Feria could not for long 
brook the need of paying supple court to the people 
over whom he had ridden roughshod, and an excuse 
was soon found by which he might be withdrawn 
without an open confession of his unfitness, and in 
May, 1559, he left Durham Place for good, leaving 
his English Countess and the Bishop of Aquila in 
possession. 

At Dover he met Baron Ravenstein, who was 
coming from the Emperor to offer the hand 
of the Archduke Charles to Elizabeth, and as 
such a match would only have subserved Spanish 
interests if it had been effected by the aid of 
Spanish diplomacy, Feria asked the German to 
become his guest at Durham Place, which he did, 
and was made much of by the Countess and the 
Bishop. But he wore out his welcome very soon, 
particularly with the latter, a portion of whose 
apartments he occupied, and the Bishop sneers at 
him for his constant attendance at Mass. "He is 
quite a good fellow," he says, " but surely this must 
be the first negotiation he ever conducted in his life." 
The Countess soon came to high words with the 
new Queen, and in a month or so left Durham Place 
in a dudgeon to join her husband in Flanders, 
thenceforward to see England no more. With 
her went, in addition to her escort, Don Juan de 
Ayala, her grandmother, Lady Dormer, and that 
Mistress Susan Clarencis who was Queen Mary's 
most devoted attendant. From that time, namely, 
July, 1559, the Bishop was temporary master of Dur- 
ham Place by favour of the Queen, against whom 
he never ceased to intrigue as far as he dared. 

19 



274 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

We have already glanced at the structure of the 
house itself ; it may be now interesting to give some 
account of the household of the Bishop, which may 
probably be considered a typical one. First there 
was a chaplain at three crowns a month and his 
board, a chief secretary at twelve crowns a month, 
a chamberlain, two or three gentlemen-in-waiting, a 
groom-of-the-chambers, and six pages — all without 
any fixed wage, but who lived on promises, per- 
quisites, and what they could pick up, eating, how- 
ever, at the Bishop's expense, and mostly clothed 
by him. Then there were two couriers at three 
shillings a month, which they rarely got ; a cook, a 
buyer, a butler, and a pantryman, at a crown a 
month each; two cantineers, two "lacqueys," two 
Irish grooms, and two washerwomen at nominal 
wages of from three to five shillings a month when 
they could get them, which was very uncertain. 
Small as the wages seem to us, the expense of the 
establishment was very great, as these people and a 
host of friends and hangers-on were fed roughly but 
abundantly at the Bishop's cost, the humbler sort 
eating in the great hall and the gentlemen of the 
household in the upper chambers. 

The Bishop had hardly been in possession of 
the house for a year when Challoner, the English 
Ambassador in Spain, warned Cecil that the " crafty 
old fox " was getting to know too much about what 
went on at Court, and that some decent excuse 
should be sought for turning him out from so advan- 
tageous a coign of vantage as Durham Place, with 
its water-gate and its close proximity to the palace, 
whence spies and courtiers might come and go 
secretly, as we now know they did, at all hours for 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 275 

the information of the King of Spain's Ambassador. 
We may be sure that the hint was not lost on Cecil, 
but the Bishop was cunning, and to turn him out 
without good ostensible cause would have been too 
risky at a time when Philip's future action was still 
uncertain. So the Queen's porter in charge of the 
house was told to take careful note of those who 
went in and out by the Strand gate, and particularly 
those who attended Mass in the Ambassador's 
chapel. But still the weak point in the position 
was the water-gate, the key of which always re- 
mained in the possession of the Bishop or his 
major-domo. Various stratagems were resorted to 
by the English porter to obtain possession of it, 
but in vain, and more decided measures had at last 
to be taken. The Bishop's confidential secretary, 
an Italian named Borghese, was bribed by Cecil 
to tell all he knew of his master's practices, and 
great promises of high position and a rich marriage 
in England were held out to him as a further reward 
for his treachery. This made him arrogant and 
boastful, and led to a slashing match with the 
Bishop's Italian gentleman-in-waiting, whom Bor- 
ghese nearly killed. He boasted that he had 
friends at Court, snapped his fingers at the officers 
of the law and at the Bishop's cajolery and threats, 
made a clean breast of it to Cecil, and things began 
to look bad for his late master. Dr. Wotton, a 
member of the Privy Council, went to Durham 
Place, and gravely formulated a series of complaints 
founded on the secretary's information. Most of 
these complaints were trivial, being to the effect 
that the Bishop had said and written various depre- 
ciatory things against the Queen : but one accusa- 



276 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

tion was serious, namely, than Shan O'Neil had 
taken the Sacrament at Durham Place, which was 
true, although the ecclesiastical diplomatist solemnly 
denied it. 

The Bishop was nearly beside himself with rage 
and chagrin, and begged plaintively to be relieved 
from his irksome post among heretics such as these. 
But all in vain. It did not suit the Queen and Cecil 
for the moment to perpetrate the last indignity of 
turning him out of the house, but after this they 
kept a closer watch upon him than ever and bode 
their time. They had not to wait long. There 
were four French hostages in London, held in 
pledge for the due fulfilment of the Treaty of 
Chateau Cambresis, and very troublesome guests 
they were. 

The most turbulent of them was a certain Nan- 
touillet, Provost of Paris, a fanatical Catholic and 
partisan of the Guises. He had for some reason 
or another conceived a grudge against a mercenary 
captain called Masino, who was in the pay of the 
Vidame de Chartres, a Huguenot nobleman. So, 
in the manner of the times, he sought to have him 
killed, and, seeking for an instrument, he came 
across a young lad of bad character called Andrea, 
who was a servant of a lute player at Court, Alfonso 
the Bolognese. To this lad the Provost gave a 
dagger and a coat of mail, and promised a reward 
of a hundred crowns if he killed Masino. Andrea 
left his musical master and hung about the Strand 
door of Durham Place for several days at the 
beginning of January, 1563. At meal times he 
went into the great hall as others did and ate his 
fill, and then lounged outside on the benches again. 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 277 

At last, in the dusk of the afternoon of the 3rd 
of January, 1563, Captain Masino came swaggering 
up the Strand on his way to Whitehall, and Andrea 
fired at him point blank, at a foot distance, with a 
harquebuss. But the captain's swagger saved his 
life, for the bullet passed between his left arm and 
his body, making a hole through his swinging cape 
and burning his doublet, and then glanced off into 
a shop on the other side of the way, "and came 
near killing - an honest Englishman therein." Out 
came the swashbuckler's long rapier, and off ran 
the assassin into the outer courtyard of Durham 
Place, shrieking for mercy, followed by the captain 
and the English neighbours. The Bishop's house- 
hold in the great courtyard seized their arms, and 
slammed the doors in the faces of the pursuers, 
whilst the terrified assassin fled through the great 
hall, through the inner courtyard and pell-mell 
up the stair leading to the Bishop's apartment. 

Quite by chance, of course, the Provost of Paris 
happened to be playing at cards with the Bishop 
and the French Ambassador, whilst Luis de Paz 
and other friends looked on. The banging of the 
crowd at the closed door of the great hall, the terror- 
stricken cries of the criminal, and the tramping of 
the servants on the stair, brought out the Bishop 
and his friends to ask indignantly the cause of the 
uproar. Andrea on his knees at the door begged 
for protection and mercy. Captain Masino had 
beaten him, he said, some days ago, and he had 
fired a shot at him and missed him, so no harm 
was done, but still the captain wanted to kill him. 
Calming the clamour, the Bishop asked whether 
the shot had been fired inside or outside of Durham 



278 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

Place. " At the gate ! " they said, and the boy had 
only entered when pursued, to save his life. "Then," 
said the Bishop to Bernabe Mata, his majordomo, 
" turn him out by the water-gate." By mere chance 
again a boat was in waiting, hired by the Provost 
of Paris, who slipped outside himself to see the 
assassin safely off, gave him ten crowns, and whilst 
the crowd still battered and stormed at the door of 
the great hall, Andrea was carried to Gravesend as 
fast as strong oars could propel him. But he was 
captured next day, and under torture told the whole 
story. The Provost himself was closely imprisoned 
in Alderman Chester's house, whence he carried on 
for weeks an interesting correspondence with his 
friends outside, written with onion juice on the 
inside lining of the breeches of a servant. 

This attempted murder was the opportunity for 
which Cecil had long been waiting. Strong hints 
about treachery founded on the secretary's informa- 
tion, galling interference with attendance at Mass, 
flouts and insults, had been more or less patiently 
borne by the Bishop at his master's behest, but 
harbouring a criminal was an infraction of the 
ordinary law of the land, and if it could be brought 
home to the Ambassador the Queen would have a 
good excuse for taking her house away from a 
tenant who put it to so bad a use. The news was 
not long travelling from the Strand to Whitehall ; 
Cobham and a posse of the Queen's guard came 
straight to Durham Place, and in the name of the 
law demanded the surrender of the criminal. They 
were told he was not there, but had left by the 
water-gate, and, this reply being unsatisfactory, they 
came back again directly with the Queen's command 






A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 279 

that the keys of the water-gate, as well as those of 
the Strand entrance, should be given up to the 
English custodian, in order that he might render 
an account of all those who went in and out. The 
Bishop writes to Philip : — 

" This custodian is a very great heretic, who for 
three years past has been in this house with no 
other duty than to spy out those who come to see 
me, for the purpose of accusing me. I have put 
up with it for all this time, although at great incon- 
venience to myself, so as to avoid having disputes 
with them on a matter of this description. When 
the Marshal made this demand, however, I answered 
him that for twenty years the Ambassadors here 
had been allowed to reside in the royal houses, 
nearly all those sent by your Majesty and the 
Emperor having done so, and they had invariably 
been accustomed to hold the keys of the houses 
wherein they lived. I said that it was not right 
that an innovation should be made in my case after 
my four years' residence here, especially on so slight 
a pretext as this matter, in which I was not at all 
to blame, and considering that this is the first case 
of the sort that has happened since I have been 
here, it cannot be said that my house is an habitual 
refuge for criminals. I would, however, go and 
give the Queen an account of the matter, which I 
endeavoured to do." 

But the Queen would not see him either that day 
or the next. She was too busy she said ; and on 
the following day, which was Twelfth Day, just as 
people were coming to Mass, some locksmiths came 
in a boat to the water-gate and put a new lock on, 
notwithstanding the protest of the Bishop's house- 



28o A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

hold, and the keys of all the gates were now held 
by the Queen's officers. The Bishop was in a 
towering rage, and said, that as the Queen im- 
prisoned him in his own house, and made a goal 
of it, he demanded the keys back, or else that she 
should find him another residence where he might 
be free. A long account of the solemn conference 
between the Bishop and the Council is given in the 
Calendar of State Papers (Foreign), the 7th of 
January, 1563, and the Bishop's version is now 
published in the Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth, 
vol. i. According to both accounts, the Bishop got 
decidedly the worst of it. Cecil was the spokes- 
man, and, instead of taking up a defensive position 
about the keys, he turned the tables by piling up all 
the complaints which his spies had accumulated for 
the last two years, and the poor Bishop found him- 
self the accused rather than the injured party. The 
escape of the criminal by the water-gate was made 
the most of — such a thing in law-abiding England 
had never been heard of before — but after all this 
was a bagatelle to the other charges. 

The neighbours had complained over and over 
again, Cecil said, of the quarrels and fights of the 
Bishop's dependants, and had asked for his removal 
from the house. There had been a squabble, one 
of many, between the English porter and the 
Bishop's scullions about the water, which, after 
serving the conduit in the inner courtyard, ran 
down to the basement kitchen of the house itself. 
The Bishop's servants kept their tap running in the 
kitchen out of malice, in order to deprive the upper 
conduit of water, and when the English porter com- 
plained, they shut the door of the great hall, so 






A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 281 

that neither he nor the neighbours could get to the 
conduit at all. Then the porter said he would cut 
the pipe and stop their supply, and at this threat 
they went to his house with weapons in their hands 
and said they would kill him if he did so ; and he 
was the Queen's servant ! But, worst of all, Cecil 
accused the Bishop of plotting with Shan O'Neil 
and Arthur Pole, and said that since the house had 
been in the Bishop's occupation it had become sadly 
dilapidated and damaged as regarded the lead, glass 
doors, and so on, and that the Queen had decided to 
put it into proper repair and find another fitting resi- 
dence for him. The Bishop retorted by denying all 
the charges, and saying that as the house was low- 
lying and damp and he was old and ailing, he would 
be glad to leave it. But soft spoken as he was to 
the Council, he was burning with rage, and wrote 
to Granvelle in a very different tone. 

It was some months yet, however, before he 
moved from Durham Place, and during that time the 
Queen's Marshal again descended upon the house 
one morning of a Catholic feast-day, and haled all 
those who were attending Mass to the Marshalsea. 
The guard had, it appears, concealed themselves 
betimes in the porter's house, and Cecil had given 
them orders that if any resistance whatever was 
offered they were to attack the house in force and 
capture all the inmates at any cost. But at last the 
poor old Bishop, heart-broken at having to suffer 
so much indignity, was got rid of and lodged else- 
where. Deeply in debt and penniless, he went in 
the summer of 1563 to Langley, Bucks, where he 
died in August, some say of poison, some of 
plague, and some of grief. Then Durham Place, 



282 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

refurbished and repaired, again became a royal 
guest-house. . 

On the 1 6th of July, 1565, the Queen lent 
Durham Place to Sir Ambrose Cave, one of her 
Privy Council, for the celebration of his daughter's 
wedding with the son of Sir Francis Knollys, the 
Vice-Chamberlain, and the new Spanish Ambas- 
sador, Canon Guzman de Silva, was invited to the 
supper in the evening, at which the Queen had 
promised to be present. By mutual consent it had 
been arranged that the French and Spanish Ambas- 
sadors should never meet at Court, or where the 
vexed question of precedence might arise ; but the 
two diplomatists, wily Churchmen both, were for 
ever on the look out for a chance of scoring off each 
other. No doubt Ambrose Cave thought he had 
cleverly evaded the difficulty by asking the French 
Ambassador to the more important meal, namely, 
the eleven o'clock dinner, and the Spanish Ambas- 
sador to the supper in the evening, at which the 
Queen was to be present. But when De Foix 
learnt at the hospitable feast at Durham Place that 
the Queen was coming later, he announced his 
intention of staying to supper as well. If Guzman 
did not like it, he said, he might stay away ; and 
poor Cave, foreseeing an unseemly squabble in the 
Queen's presence, rushed off in despair to the 
Spanish Ambassador to beg of him not to come. 
But this was too much for the Toledan pride of the 
Canon, and he told Cave that he had not sought an 
invitation to the feast, but since it had been given 
and accepted he was not going to stay away for the 
French Ambassador or any one else. As for pre- 
cedence, his master was the greatest King on earth, 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 283 

and if the worst came to the worst he would fight 
out the question. In vain Cave protested that the 
Queen would not come if there was to be any 
quarrelling, and he would be ruined at Court. He 
could not, he said, get rid of the Frenchman, who 
flatly refused to go, and he could hardly throw him 
out of the window. Guzman said if there was much 
ado about it he would throw him out of window 
himself, and sent off Cave in a huff. Then Guzman 
hurried to Whitehall in order to catch the Queen 
before she started for Durham Place. He waited 
for some time, he says, in the privy garden by 
which she would have to pass to her barge ; and 
after she had vainly attempted to smooth matters 
over, and said she herself must refrain from going if 
there was to be any disturbance, she pretended to 
fly into a rage at Cave's management of the affair, 
and sent Cecil and Throgmorton off to Durham 
Place to get rid of the French Ambassador some- 
how. What arguments they used Guzman neither 
knew nor cared, but when he arrived with the 
Queen the rival Ambassador was gone, and he was 
the principal guest next to the sovereign. " The 
Queen stayed through the entertainment, and the 
Emperor's Ambassador and I supped with her in 
company with the bride and some of the principal 
ladies and the gentlemen who came with the 
Emperor's Ambassador. After supper there was a 
ball, a tourney, and two masques, and the feast 
ended at half-past one in the morning." 

In September, 1565, Durham Place received a 
royal guest in the person of Cecilia, Princess of 
Sweden, Margravine of Baden, who came prin- 
cipally to spy how the land lay with regard to the 



284 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

oft-repeated suit for Elizabeth's hand made by her 
brother Eric XIV. The English queen, as was 
her wont, made much of her at first ; but she, too, 
wore out her welcome during the months she 
stayed, for, as we have seen, the housekeeping of 
great folk in those days was far from economical, 
and when the Swedish princess ran short of money 
and wanted pecuniary help, as she soon did, frugal 
Elizabeth's friendship began to cool, and it ended 
in the poor Princess having to pledge even her 
clothes to satisfy her more pressing creditors before 
they would let her go ; and her husband, a ruling 
prince, was put into gaol at Rochester by the irate 
tradesmen who had trusted his wife. But all this 
was at the end of her visit ; the beginning was cer- 
tainly brilliant and auspicious. 

The Princess arrived at Dover in the Queen's 
ships, and was there received by Lord Cobham and 
his wife, the Mistress of the Robes, and a knot of 
courtiers sent by the Queen from Windsor. They 
rode as usual through Kent to Gravesend, where 
the Queen's barges awaited them, and the Queen's 
cousin, Lord Hunsdon, and six pages in royal livery 
received the Princess, who was thus carried up the 
river with all pomp and circumstance to the water- 
gate of Durham Place. Her dress on the occasion 
attracted attention in London by its strangeness. 
She was attired, we are told, in a long black velvet 
robe, with a mantle of cloth of silver and black, and 
on her fair hair she wore a golden crown. At the 
top of the water-stairs at Durham Place she was 
received by the Countess of Sussex, Lady Bacon, 
and Cecil, and installed in the house with all 
honour. A day or two afterwards the Queen came 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 285 

from Windsor to visit her. " She received her 
Majesty at the door, where she embraced her 
warmly, and both went up to her apartments. 
After the Queen had passed some time with her 
in great enjoyment she returned home, and the 
next night, the 15th, the Princess was delivered of 
a son." In due time the young Prince of Baden 
was christened with great pomp, and Durham Place 
was a scene of festivity on that and many other 
occasions whilst the Swedish Princess resided there. 
We have rather a full account of one of Queen 
Elizabeth's visits to the Princess at Durham Place, 
as Guzman, the Spanish Ambassador, happened to 
be at Whitehall when her Majesty was starting, 
and, at her invitation, accompanied her thither in 
her barge. He says he was with her alone for 
some time in the cabin of the barge, until, probably, 
her Majesty becoming tired of a tete-a-tete with an 
elderly clergyman, called her new pet Heneage to 
her, and began to whisper and flirt with him. The 
Princess awaited the Queen at the water-gate as 
usual, and led her to the principal apartments 
upstairs, although neither royal lady would consent 
to be seated until a stool was brought for Guzman, 
who relates the incident. The Queen came by 
water, and returned in a coach by way of the 
Strand. When she was seated in the carriage with 
Lady Cobham, her maiden Majesty could not resist 
the opportunity afforded by the condition of her 
companion to make rather a risky joke to the Am- 
bassador, who, ecclesiastic though he was, retorted 
fully in the same vein, and carefully repeated the 
conversation in a letter to his royal master the next 
day. 



286 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

For the next few years Durham Place gave 
shelter to many courtiers, ambassadors, and honoured 
guests of the Queen, and was occasionally lent, as 
we have seen, for parties and merrymakings, its 
large size and easy access by land and water 
making it peculiarly appropriate for such uses. But 
the elder Earl of Essex, Walter Devereux, made a 
somewhat longer stay in some of its apartments. 
It was here, probably enough in the turret-rooms 
which were Raleigh's favourite abiding-place, that 
Essex planned that expedition to Ireland with 
which his name was destined for all time to be 
linked. From here he started in August, 1573, 
and, with the exception of one flying visit in 1575, 
never saw Durham Place apain. 

In 1583 the Queen granted the house to Raleigh. 
It was in a dilapidated condition, and he spent, as 
he says, ,£2,000 in repairing it ; certain it is that 
during twenty years that Raleigh lived there Durham 
Place reached its apogee of splendour. The Strand 
had greatly altered for the better since the time 
when Feria lived at Durham Place. The Bishop ot 
Carlisle's house, on the other side of Ivy Lane, had 
disappeared, and Robert Cecil had built a splendid 
house for himself on its site. His father and elder 
brother, too, across the Strand had another palace, 
and between them they had paved and made up 
the roadway for a considerable distance before 
their properties. But slowly, too, the Strand was 
becoming a great fashionable thoroughfare, and 
long-headed Robert Cecil knew well that as shops 
grew up along its line the street frontage would 
increase in value. So he cast covetous eyes across 
his own boundary at Ivy Lane on to the great 



A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 287 

ramshackle congeries of stables and outhouses 
which fronted the Strand at Durham Place. As 
lono- as his mistress lived he dared not disturb 
Raleigh, but no sooner had the great Queen 
passed away than Raleigh was turned out with 
every circumstance of harshness and insult, and 
Lord Salisbury got his street frontage, upon which 
he built Britain's Burse, which was to be a rival to 
the Royal Exchange. 

Thenceforward Durham Place went down in the 
world. A sort of square, with entrance by what is 
now called Durham Street, was built on a portion 
of the garden and great courtyard, but the hall and 
mansion themselves were left intact, and the latter 
was still used for the lodging of ambassadors and 
others, and the Bishops of Durham appear to 
have had lodgings in what formerly was their own 
palace. Lord Keeper Coventry lived, or at all 
events wrote, his letters here, and Lord Keeper 
Finch died at Durham Place in 1640. Lord Pem- 
broke bought the whole site soon after, intending; to 
build himself a house there ; but although the plans 
were made the project fell through. The Com- 
monwealth soldiers were quartered in the house for 
nearly two years, and Lord Pembroke had to find 
himself a house elsewhere, for which the Parliament 
voted him ^200. 

The Strand front became more and more valu- 
able, and by and by another exchange was built 
on the rest of the frontage, whilst the property 
in the rear continued to get more squalid as the 
time went on. In the middle of the last century 
the exchanges were pulled down and a fine row 
of shops built on the site, whilst projects for 



288 A PALACE IN THE STRAND. 

dealing with the space still occupied by the old 
palace were busying many men's minds. At last 
came the brothers Adam and made a clean sweep 
of it all, back and front, and built the Adelphi as we 
see it to-day. The wide expanse of mud which at 
low tide formerly spread from the walls of the 
old palace is now replaced by the waving trees of a 
public garden. Great railway stations, gigantic 
hotels, towering masses of " fiats " and " mansion " 
rear their high heads all round the site of old Dur- 
ham Place. The wealth and power have passed 
from the hands of the few to the hands of the many, 
and instead of one man living in squalid splendour 
in the comfortless palace surrounded by hosts of 
unproductive hinds, hundreds live in comfort, use- 
fulness, and self-respect upon the spot. There is 
probably more money spent in a week by working 
people in the garish music-hall that occupies the 
Strand front than would have sufficed to keep 
Durham Place in full swing for a year during the 
time of its greatest grandeur. 




THE EXORCISM OF CHARLES THE 
BEWITCHED. 



20 




CHARLES II. OF SPAIN, "The Bewitched." 

(From a fainting by Claudio Cocllo.) 




THE EXORCISM OF CHARLES THE 
BEWITCHED.^ 



The pallid little milksop in black velvet, with his 
lank, tow-coloured hair and his great underhung 
chin, who will simper for ever on the canvas of 
Carrefio, had grown to be a man — a poor feeble 
anaemic old man of thirty-seven, 2 the last of his 
race, to whom fastings and feastings, the ceremonies 
of the Church, and the nostrums of the empirics had 
been equally powerless in providing a successor 
for the crumbling empire of his fathers. The 

1 The Gentleman 's Magazine, November, 1893. 

2 Stanhope, the English minister in Madrid, writes to the 
Duke of Shrewsbury, September, 1696 : " They cut off his 
hair in this sickness, which the decay of nature had almost 
done before, all his crown being bald. He has a ravenous 
stomach, and swallows all he eats whole, for his nether jaw 
stands out so much that his two rows of teeth cannot meet, 
so that a gizzard or a liver of a hen passes down whole, and 
his weak stomach not being able to digest it he void it in 
the same manner." 



292 THE EXORCISM OF 

strong spirits upon whom he had leant in his youth 
and early manhood had passed away. His im- 
perious mother, who reigned so long and unworthily 
in his name, had died of cancer only a year or two 
ago. His virile brother, Don Juan Jos6 of Austria, 
in whom the worn-out blood of the imperial race had 
been quickened by the brighter but baser blood of 
his actress mother, had been poisoned. His beloved 
first wife, the beautiful Marie Louise of Orleans, 
had faded away in the sepulchral gloom of that 
dreary Court, and his new German wife, Marie Anne 
of Neuberg, with her imperious violence, frightened 
him out of what little wit he had left by her 
advocacy of new ideas. For new ideas to that poor 
brain were the inventions of the very Devil himself. 
He had been drilled for years into the knowledge 
that the claims of his French kinsmen to his in- 
heritance were just ; and, though for years past all 
the diplomatists of Europe had been plotting and 
planning for one or the other claimant with varying 
success, all that poor Charles the Bewitched himself 
wanted was to be left alone in peace whilst he lived, 
and that one of his French cousins should succeed 
him when he died. There was not much chance 
of either wish being fulfilled from the time that 
England and the Austrian faction juggled Marie 
Anne of Neuberg into the palace as Charles' second 
wife. She made short work of all the courtiers and 
ministers who favoured the French succession — 
they had one after the other either to come round 
to her side or go. Most of the best of them — not 
that any of them were very good — sulked in their 
own provinces awaiting events, whilst others still 
plotted in the capital. 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 293 

In the meantime the Queen and her camarilla 
were all-powerful. After various weak and futile 
explosions, the smashing of crockery and breaking 
of furniture and the like, the poor King, for the 
sake of peace, let her have her own way, and 
ostensibly favoured the claims of the Austrian 
Archduke to his inheritance. But like most 
semi-idiots he could not relax his grasp on an 
idea of which he had once become possessed, and 
though he was surrounded day and night by the 
Queen's creatures, and was content that they should 
have their way whilst he was well, he no sooner 
fell into one of his periodical fits of deadly sickness 
than, with all the terror and dread of death, and 
constant fear of poison and witchcraft upon him, 
he yearned for the presence of those who had been 
with him in earlier and happier days, before the 
German Queen and her base blood-suckers had 
come to disturb his tranquillity. 

The story of the strange and obscure Court 
intrigue which resulted in the gaining by the 
French faction of the upper hand in the palace 
during the critical time preceding Charles's death, 
has often and variously been told, mostly with 
an ignorant or wilful distortion of events. M. 
Morel-Fatio has shown how Victor Hugo has 
deliberately falsified the character of the Queen 
Marie Anne of Neuberg, in order that he might 
make use of the local colour furnished by the 
Countess d'Aulnoy's letters written from Spain 
fifteen years before the period represented by the 
dramatist ; l and many other writers, French and 

1 " L'Histoire dans Ruy Bias" in " Etudes sur l'Espagne," 
by A. Morel-Fatio, Paris. 



294 THE EXORCISM OF 

English, who have been attracted by the romantic 
elements of the witchcraft story, have surrounded 
it with a cloud of fictitious persons and incidents 
which makes it difficult now to distinguish between 
history and romance. Every writer on the subject, 
so far as I know, moreover, has stopped short at 
the story of the exorcism itself, whereas it really 
developed into a great struggle of many years' 
duration between the Grand Inquisitor on the 
one hand and the Council of Inquisitors on 
the other, in which, curiously enough, the latter 
body championed the cause of legal process as 
against the arbitrary power assumed by its own 
chief. 

There is in the British Museum x a full manu- 
script account from day to day of the whole 
transaction from beginning" to end, written at the 
time by one of the clerks or secretaries in the 
Inquisition, who, although he avows himself a 
partisan of the French faction and of the King's 
confessor, Froilan Diaz, around whom all the storm 
raged, declares that he has set down the unvarnished 
truth of the whole complicated business, in order 
that people may know after his death what really 
happened, and how much they " owe to his Sacred 
Majesty Philip V. for preserving the privileges of 
the holy tribunal of the Inquisition, or, what is 
the same, our holy faith." By the aid of this 
set of documents, and another set in the Museum 
(part of which has been published in Spanish), 

1 Add. MS. 10241, British Museum. See also " Proceso 
criminal fulminado contra el Rmo. P.M. Fray Froylan Diaz, 
de la sagrada religion de predicadores, Confesor del Rev 
N.S.D. Carlos II. : Madrid, 1787." 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 295 

the story, which is well worth preserving, may 
be reconstructed, and the hitherto unrelated par- 
ticulars of the actual exorcism rescued from 
oblivion. 

The most powerful person at Court next to the 
Queen was Father Matilla, the King's confessor, 
whose hand was everywhere, and who said on 
one occasion that he would much rather make 
bishops than be one. Then came the other mem- 
bers of the Queen's camarilla, an obscure country 
lawyer who had been created Count Adanero, and 
Minister of Finance and the Indies, who provided 
the crew with money to their hearts' content, and 
squandered and muddled away the national re- 
sources, whilst all Spain was groaning under 
impossible imposts ; Madame Berlips, a German 
woman who had an extraordinary influence over 
the Queen, and an insatiable greed ; two Italian 
monks, and a mutilated musician of the Royal 
Chapel. There were two great nobles also who, 
after several periods of disgrace and hesitation, 
had at last thrown themselves on to the Queen's side 
— the Admiral of Castile and Count Oropesa, the 
ostensibly responsible ministers ; but these prac- 
tically only carried out the designs of the Queen's 
camarilla, and were content with the appearance 
and profits of power without its exercise. The 
populace, as may be imagined, were in deadly 
opposition to the Queen and her foreign sur- 
roundings, and were strongly in favour of one of 
the younger French princes whom they might adopt 
and make a Spaniard of, as they never could hope 
to do with a German archduke, and thus, as they 
thought, avoid the threatened partition of their 



296 THE EXORCISM OF 

country. 1 This was the position of things in March, 
1698, when the King, who had partly recovered 
from his previous attack eighteen months before, 
was again taken ill. 2 He was dragged out by the 
Queen to totter and stagger in religious processions, 
was made to go through the ceremonial forms of 
his position, nodding and babbling incoherently to 
ministers and ambassadors whom he was obliged 
to receive, and at last, weary and sick to death, 
haunted by an unquiet conscience and with the 
appalling fear of hourly poison, he sent word by 
a trusty messenger to the wise, crafty old minister 
of his mother, Cardinal Portocarrero, who had been 
banished from the Court by the Queen, that he 
wished to see him. 

The Cardinal needed no two invitations, but 
posted off to the palace. He had still plenty of 

1 Stanhope to his son, March 14, 1698 : " Our Court is in great 
disorder : the grandees all dog and cat, Turk and Moor. The 
King is in a languishing condition, so weak and spent as to his 
principles of life that there is only hope of preserving him for a 
few weeks. . . . The general inclination is altogether French 
to the succession, their aversion to the Queen having set them 
against all her countrymen, and if the French King will con- 
tent himself that one of his younger grandchildren be King 
of Spain, he will find no opposition either from grandees or 
common people. The King is not in a condition to give 
audience, speaking very little and that not much to the pur- 
pose. The terms in which they express it to me is that he 
is embelecado, atolondrado , and dementado. He fancies the 
devils are very busy in tempting him." 

2 " The King is so very weak he can scarcely lift his hand to 
his head to feed himself, and so extremely melancholy that 
neither his buffoons, dwarfs, nor puppet shows, all of which 
show their abilities before him, can in the least divert him 
from fancying everything that is said or done to be a tempta- 
tion of the Devil, and never thinking himself safe without his 
confessor and two friars by his side, whom he makes lie in 
his chamber every night " (Stanhope to the Earl of Portland, 
March 14, 1698). 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 297 

friends of various ranks, notwithstanding the 
Queen, and amongst them was Count de Benavente, 
the Gentleman of the Bedchamber. By him he 
was conducted at night to the King's bed-side, 
after the Queen had retired, and heard the heart- 
broken recital of the monarch's troubles. The 
King told him he was ill and unhappy and in 
trouble about his soul's health. He was conscious, 
of a struggle going on within him between his know- 
ledge of the right thing to do and his incapacity to 
do it, and this left him no peace or happiness. The 
people who surrounded him were distasteful to him, 
his confessor, Matilla, gave him no real consolation, 
and he ascribed much of his own illness and misery 
to the bad management and ceaseless worry he 
had to endure from those who had the direction 
of affairs. The King unburdened himself to 
the Cardinal in his lisping, mumbling fashion, 
his utterance broken with sobs and tears, but 
sufficiently plainly for Portocarrero to see that if 
he and his friends acted boldly, swiftly, and secretly 
they might again become predominant and dispose 
of the splendid inheritance of Spain and the Indies. 
He said some consoling soothing- words to the 
King, and promised him that steps should be 
taken to insure him tranquillity, and then he took 
his leave. The interview took place in the ancient 
Alcazar, which stood on the site of the present 
royal palace in Madrid, for poor Carlos had no 
spirits for the new Buen Retiro Palace, where his 
father had been so gay and splendid. It was nearly 
eleven o'clock at night, but as soon as the Cardinal 
got back to his own house he summoned his friends 
to a private conference. They were all of them 



298 THE EXORCISM OF 

courtiers in disgrace with the Queen, and most of 
them extremely popular with the mob in Madrid. 
There was Count Monterey, mild and temporising, 
with his hesitating speech and his irritating ''hems 
and hahs " ; there was the Marquis of Leganes, 
a hot-headed soldier, rash and pugnacious ; Don 
Francisco Ronquillo, ambitious, intriguing, and 
bold, who, with his brother, was the idol of the 
" chulos " of the capital ; Don Juan Antonio Urraca, 
honest, uncouth, and boorish ; and, above all, quiet, 
wise, and prudent Don Sebastian de Cotes, a close 
friend of the Cardinal's. First, Monterey was in- 
vited to give his opinion as to what should be done, 
but he dwelt mainly upon the danger to them all 
presented from the King's infirmity of purpose ; 
and how one minister after the other who had for 
a moment succeeded in persuading him to make 
a stand, had been disgraced and banished the 
moment the Queen got access to her husband and 
twisted him round her finger, as she could. He 
had no desire to take risks, apparently, and could 
recommend nothing but that the Cardinal Arch- 
bishop should keep his footing in the palace, and 
gradually work upon the King's mind. Leganes 
scoffed at such timid counsels ; where the disease 
was so violent as this a strong remedy must be 
adopted. This should be the immediate banish- 
ment, and, if necessary, the imprisonment of the 
Admiral of Castile, the principal minister. He 
(Leganes) had plenty of arms at home, and had 
hundreds of men in Madrid who would serve him, 
with experienced officers to command them, and 
could soon make short work of the Admiral and 
his train of poets and buffoons. Ronquillo went 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 299 

further still. He said that was all very well, but 
at the same time they must seize the Queen and 
shut her up at the Huelgas de Burgos. Monterey 
called him a fool, and said such an act would be 
the death of the King and would ruin them all 
before he could alter his will ; and the two nobles 
rushed at each other to fight out the question on the 
spot before the Archbishop himself. When they 
were separated the Cardinal no doubt thought it 
was time to do something practical, and asked his 
friend Cotes his opinion. Cotes was prosy enough, 
but practical. He said of course Portocarrero could 
easily get the King to sign any decree he liked, but 
the Queen could more easily still get him to revoke 
it ; and, although it would be well to strike at the 
Queen herself, he did not know who would dare 
to do it. But after all she could only influence 
him by mundane means ; the confessor, Matilla, 
whom the King hated and feared, and flouted only 
yesterday, must be got rid of, and the Queen would 
lose her principal instrument. This was approved 
of, but no one could suggest a fitting successor 
except Ronquillo — who, of course, had a nominee 
of his own ! — who was promptly vetoed. Each of 
the others doubtless had one too, but thought best 
to press his claims privately. So it was left to 
the Archbishop to choose a new successor and 
gain the King's consent to his appointment. The 
choice fell upon a certain Froilan Diaz, professor of 
theology at the University of Alcala. One of his 
recommendations was that he was near enough to 
the capital to be brought thither quickly, before the 
affair got wind, and no sooner did the Ronquillos 
learn that Cotes had recommended him to the 



30o THE EXORCISM OF 

Archbishop than they sent a mounted messenger 
post-haste to Alcala to inform Father Froilan of 
his coming greatness, and claim for themselves 
the credit of his appointment. 

A few days afterwards, in the afternoon, the King 
lay in bed languidly listening to the music which was 
being played in the outer chamber, with which his 
own room communicated by an open door. The 
outer room, as usual, was crowded with courtiers, and 
in the deep recess of a window stood the confessor, 
Matilla, chatting with a friend, alert and watchful 
of all that passed. Suddenly Count de Benavente 
entered with a stout, fresh-coloured ecclesiastic, 
quiet and modest of mien and unknown to all. 
They walked across the presence chamber without 
announcement, and entered the King's chamber, 
shutting the door behind them. Matilla's face grew 
longer and his eyes wider as he saw this, and he 
knew instinctively that his day was over. Turning 
to his friend, he said, "Good-bye ; this is beginning 
where it ought to have left off," and with that he 
left the palace, and went with the conviction of 
disaster to his monastery of the Rosario. They 
had all known for some days that something had 
been brewing. Spies had dogged every footstep 
of the Archbishop and those who attended the 
midnight meeting at his house, but they had left 
out of account the King's own Gentleman of the 
Bedchamber, Count de Benavente, who had arranged 
the whole affair. It is true that when the Queen 
had, as usual, entered the King's bedroom that day, 
at eleven o'clock, to see him dine, he had told her 
in a whisper, unable to retain his secret, that he 
had changed his confessor. She, astounded and 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 301 

disconcerted at the news, pretended to approve 
of the change — anything, she said, to give tran- 
quillity to her dear Carlos. But when she could 
leave, she flew with all speed to her room, sum- 
moned the Admiral and the camarilla, and told 
them they were undone. Panic reigned supreme, 
the general idea being that Matilla himself had 
betrayed them. In any case they saw that he was 
past praying for, so they threw him overboard, and 
decided to try to save themselves, and see if, in 
time, they could not buy over the new confessor. 

The only man of them who kept his head was 
a great ecclesiastic, a brother of the Admiral of 
Aragon, and of a member of the Council of the 
Inquisition, one Folch de Cardona, Commissary- 
General of the Order of San Francisco, who was 
subsequently to play an important part in the tragi- 
comedy. When Matilla learnt that the Queen and 
her friends had known of the change an hour or two 
before it happened he broke down. " Oh, for that 
hour ! " he exclaimed ; " in it I would have set it all 
right." Divested of all his offices, dismissed from 
his inquisitorship, with a pension of 2,000 ducats, 
he died within a week of poison or a broken heart, 
and he disappears from the scene. 

In his place stands Froilan Diaz, a simple- 
minded tool of the courtiers who had appointed 
him. He did not look very terrible, even to the 
panic-stricken Queen and her friends, and they 
decided to make the best of him, and try to 
confine the changes to the confessorship. Hence- 
forward Froilan Diaz was a man to be courted 
and flattered. Honours and wealth were lavished 
on him, and for a year no great change was 



302 THE EXORCISM OF 

made in the palace or outside ; but under the 
surface intrigue was busy, both at the King's 
bedside and in the haunts of the Madrid mob. At 
the end of a year the latter element made short 
work of the ministers and the Queen's gang and 
drove the lot of them out, to be replaced by Arias, 
the Ronquillos, and the French party ; but with 
this revolt the present study has nothing to do. 

The King's extreme decrepitude for a young man 
had several years before given rise to rumours 
amongst the vulgar that he was bewitched, and the 
assertion had been made the subject of grave con- 
sideration by the Grand Inquisitor of the time, who 
reported that he could find no evidence to act upon. 
At the time of the first serious illness of the King, 
in 1697, he had of his own action sent to the new 
Grand Inquisitor a terrible and austere Dominican 
monk called Rocaberti, and had confessed to him 
his conviction that his illness was not natural but 
the result of some maleficent charm, and besought 
him earnestly to have an exhaustive inquiry made. 
The Inquisitor told him that he would, if he pleased, 
have inquiry made, but saw no possible result could 
come of it, unless the King could point out some 
person whom he suspected or some plausible evi- 
dence to go upon. And so the matter remained 
until some weeks after Father Froilan had become 
confessor. As may be supposed, Froilan Diaz's 
elevation had reminded all his old friends of his 
existence, and, amongst others, an old fellow-student 
visited him, with whom he fell into talk about past 
days and former acquaintances. " And how is 
Father Argiielles getting on ? " said the confessor. 
" Ah, poor fellow ! " was the reply ; " he is confessor 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 303 

at a convent at Cangas, terribly ill, but in no-wise 
cast down, for the Devil himself has assured him in 
person that God is preserving him for a great work 
yet that shall resound through the world." The 
King's confessor pricked up his ears at this, and 
wanted further particulars. It appeared, according 
to the friend, that Arg-uelles had had much trouble 
with two nuns of his convent, who were possessed, 
and in the course of his exorcisms had become quite 
on intimate terms with his Satanic Majesty. Froilan 
thought this was too important to be neglected, so 
he consulted the Grand Inquisitor, the Dominican 
Rocaberti. The grim monk did not, apparently, 
much like the business, but consented to a letter 
being written to the Bishop of Oviedo, the superior 
of Arguelles, asking him to question his subordinate 
as to the truth of the assertion that the King" was 
suffering from diabolical charms. The Bishop, de- 
termined that he would not be made the channel 
for such nonsense, wrote a sensible answer back, 
saying that he did not believe in the witchcraft 
story. All that ailed the King was a weakness of the 
heart and a too ready acquiescence in the Queen's 
wishes, so he would have nothing- to do with it. 

Then Froilan sent direct to Arguelles, who 
himself was afraid of the business unless he was 
secured from harm, and refused to put any questions 
to the Devil unless he had the warrant of the Grand 
Inquisitor. A letter was therefore written by the 
latter on June 18, 1698, ordering him to write the 
names of the King and Queen on a sheet of 
paper, and, without uttering them, to place the 
paper on his breast, summon the Devil, and ask 
him whether the persons whose names were so 



304 THE EXORCISM OF 

written were suffering from witchcraft. Froilan 
sent the letter in a long one of his own to his old 
friend Arglielles with an elaborate cipher and other 
devices for secrecy in subsequent communica- 
tions. No names henceforward were to be written. 
The vicar, Arglielles, replied, expressing no sur- 
prise at so strange a request, but said the Devil had 
previously told him that he was reserved for great 
things, but had not given particulars, only that he 
should receive an order from a superior. Then he 
tells the result obtained by his first effort. He says 
he placed the hands of the possessed nun upon the 
altar, and by the power of his incantations com- 
manded the Devil to answer the question put to him. 
The Devil was not at all shy, but "swore by God 
Almighty that it was the truth that the King was 
bewitched," " et hoc ad destruendam materiam gene- 
rationis in Rege et eum incapacem ponendum ad 
reernum administrandum." He said the charm had 
been administered by moonlight when the King was 
fourteen years of age. 

So far the Devil. Then the vicar, as an expert, 
gives some advice of his own. He says the 
King should be given half a pint of oil to drink, 
fasting, with the benediction, and the ceremony 
of exorcism which the Church prescribes. 1 He 

1 How fit the King was to undergo such a regime as this 
may be judged by Stanhope's letter to his son, dated Madrid, 
June 15, 1698 : " Our gazettes here tells us every week that 
his Catholic Majesty is in perfect health, and it is the general 
answer to all inquiries. It is true that he is abroad every day, 
but haret lateri Icthalis arundo ; his ankles and knees swell 
again, his eyes bag, the lids red as scarlet, and the rest of his 
face a greenish yellow. His tongue is trabada, as they ex- 
press it ; that is, he has such a fumbling" in his speech, those 
near him hardly understand him, at which he sometimes 
grows angry, asks if they all be deaf." 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 305 

must not eat anything for some time after- 
wards, and everything he eats and drinks must 
be blessed. The case is a very bad one, he 
says, and a miracle will be performed. If the 
King can bear it he should be given, in addition, 
the charm prescribed by the Church, but not 
otherwise. 

He gives the not improbable opinion that as the 
King will vomit dreadfully he must be held in the 
arms of the "master," by which name it was agreed 
that the Grand Inquisitor should be referred to in 
the correspondence. But he says not an hour is 
to be lost, and the master himself must administer 
the draught. 

But this remedy was too strong, and Froilan 
and the Inquisitor, or the friend and the master, 
as they are called henceforward, write to say 
that, although they are much obliged to the Devil 
and the vicar, such a draught as that recom- 
mended would certainly kill the King, and they 
beg the exorciser to ask the Devil again for a more 
practical and a safer remedy. " How much and in 
what form is the Church charm to be given ; at what 
hour ; on what parts of the body ? " And so on — 
queer questions indeed to be addressed by two 
pillars of the Church to the Devil. But this is not 
all. They draw up a series of questions that would 
do honour to a cross-examining barrister. " What 
is the proof of witchcraft? In what way does 
it act so as to make the King do things contrary 
to his own will ? How are the organs affected 
cleansed by the charm ? What compact was made 
with the Devil when the witchery was effected ? 
Was it administered internally, or externally ? 

21 



306 THE EXORCISM OF 

Who administered it ? Has it been repeated ? Is 
the Queen included in its operation ? " And other 
questions of a similar sort. The vicar is rather 
shocked at their inquisitiveness, and refuses to put 
such questions. How can he ask the Devil any- 
thing that the Church does not deal with in its 
exorcising ceremonies ? 

Another letter is sent asking him to consult the 
Devil as to whether it will be well to take the King 
to Toledo, to which the vicar replies somewhat 
evasively, reproaching his associates. What is the 
good, he says, of all their professed desire to heal 
the King whilst they refuse to carry out the direc- 
tions sent them ? A change of place is useless if 
he takes the malady with him, and until they follow 
out the instructions already given it is no good for 
him to consult the Devil arain. " Besides," he 
says, getting into dangerously deep water for a 
country vicar, "how can you expect the King to 
be well ? Justice is not done, the churches are 
starved, hospitals are despoiled and closed, and 
souls are allowed to suffer in purgatory because 
money is begrudged for Masses, and above all, the 
King does not administer justice after swearing 
on the cross that he would do so. The Divine 
message has already been delivered to you. I have 
told you all it is fitting for you to know and how to 
cure the patient, and you do nothing but ask a lot 
more questions. I tell ye, then, that you will find no 
excuse for this at the supreme judgment, and the 
death of the King will be laid at your door, since 
you could cure him and will not." This was almost 
too bold to be borne, and the Inquisitor's secretary 
writes back in grave condemnation. He again 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 307 

insists upon the questions being put to the Devil. 
' ' You are presumptuous to dare to suppose that you 
know better than the friend and the master, and 
that you can command in this way whilst refusing to 
obey. You want to get out of it now by attributing 
the King's illness to other causes. The ' friend 
and the master ' are deeply offended, and if you do 
not do as you are commanded all will be frustrated, 
and we distressed to feel that, just as God had 
begun to open the door of knowledge to us, all is 
spoilt by your presumption and obstinacy." 

After a orood deal more of mutual recrimination 

o 

the vicar gave way, and on September 9, 1698, 
he wrote that he had sworn the Devil on the holy 
sacrament, and he had declared that the charm had 
been administered to the King in a cup of chocolate 
on April 3, 1673. " I asked," he writes, "what the 
charm was made of, and he said three parts of a 
dead man." " What parts ? " " Brain to take away 
his will, intestines to spoil his health, and kidney to 
ruin his virility." " Can we burn any sign to restore 
him ? " " No, by the God that made you and me." 
"Was it a man or a woman who administered the 
charm ? " "A woman ; and she has already been 
judged." "Why did she do it?" "In order to 
reign." "When?" "In the day of Don Juan of 
Austria, whom she killed with a similar charm, only 
stronger." 

This of course was directed against the late 
Queen-mother — a dangerous line to take, consider- 
ing that the Cardinal Archbishop Portocarrero, 
whose creature Froilan was, had been her friend 
and minister. Lucifer continued, that the remedies 
were those that the Church prescribed. First, 



308 THE EXORCISM OF 

drinking of blessed oil fasting ; secondly, anointing 
the whole body with the oil ; next, strong purges 
and absolute isolation of the King even from the 
sight of the Queen. Then the Devil got sulky, 
said he was tired and knew no more, and refused to 
say another word. The adoption of such a course 
as that prescribed, with a man who was dying 
already of exhaustion would have been murder ; 
and of course the associates again hesitated, writing 
to the vicar directing him to inquire of the Devil 
if any witchery has been practised since the first, 
and why the King cannot do right when he wishes 
to, instead of being, as he complains, impelled to act 
wrongly against his will. It seems impossible that 
this can be the result of the original charm, particu- 
larly as the person who gave it is dead. Has any- 
thing been given since ? " Yes," says the Devil, 
"in 1694, on ly f° ur years ago, on September 24th, 
a similar charm was given in food and left no out- 
ward sign," and this the Devil swears by God and 
the Holy Trinity. Then Lucifer, tired of answer- 
ing questions, apparently gives a bit of advice. He 
says they are thwarting Providence by their delay, 
and if they do not hurry up the King will be past 
help. 

But again the friend and the master want more 
information, and on October 22nd write to say that 
it is of the highest importance that they should know 
the name and residence of the witch ; who ordered 
her to act, and why. This the Devil absolutely refuses 
to answer ; but as his past proceedings proved him 
to be a demon somewhat infirm of purpose, they do 
not seem to have been at all discouraged, but a 
week or so afterwards return to the charge with a 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 309 

perfect catechism, which they order the vicar to 
put to his diabolical interlocutor. "Who was the 
witch ? What was her name, condition, and resi- 
dence ? Who ordered the charm, and why ? Who 
got the corpse and prepared the conjuration ? Who 
handed the chocolate to the King ? Had the witch 
any children ? " And so on at great length. The 
answer came from the vicar on October 7th, in 
which the Devil seems to have made quite a clean 
breast of it. The Queen-mother, he said, had 
ordered the first charm ; the first witch was a woman 
named Casilda, married, with two sons, who lived 
away from her. The go-between was Valenzuela 
(the Queen-mother's favourite), and the witch had 
no accomplice but the Devil. She sought the 
corpse and prepared the charm, and handed it to 
Valenzuela. The second charm, in 1694, was ac ^- 
ministered by one who wishes for the fleur-de-lis in 
Spain ; one who is a great adulator of the King, 
but hates him bitterly. The Devil could not 
mention names, he said, but they knew the person 
well. This witch was a famous one named Maria, 
living in the Calle Mayor ; but he could not give 
the number of the house or her surname. 

The Grand Inquisitor's secretary wrote in answer 
to this, thanking him, but regretting that his infor- 
mation was so limited. The street mentioned as 
the residence of the first witch, namely, the Calle de 
Herreros, did not exist in Madrid, and the friend 
and the master beg" the vicar to ask his friend the 
Devil for more information as to the houses and 
husbands of both witches, "as to seek a Maria in 
the High Street of Madrid was like looking for a 
needle in a haystack." They want also the name 



310 THE EXORCISM OF 

of the person who ordered the second charm, and 
the secretary ends his letter with an astounding 
invocation of the Devil's aid. He is conjured in 
the names of God, of His holy Mother, and of St. 
Simeon of Jerusalem, the King's patron saint, to 
intercede with God, " who, the lessons tell us, is 
a relative," to aid in the King's recovery. No reply 
appears to have been received to this letter, but it 
was soon followed by another, saying that the friend 
and the master have administered the charm recom- 
mended by the Devil, and the King is better ; but 
they urgently beg for further aid from the same 
quarter, and more charms if possible. This letter 
was written on November 5, 1698, and produced 
two replies from the vicar, who said that he had 
been conjuring all the afternoon fruitlessly, and at 
last the Devil burst out in a rage, " Go away ! don't 
bother me." In fact, it is quite clear at this point 
that the vicar, having got himself into a perfect net 
of confusion and contradiction, was getting very 
frightened indeed ; and his next letter said the 
Devil was sulky, and would only reply to all his 
conjurations that he, the Devil, had been telling 
him a lot of lies and would say no more. All 
would be known by and by, but not yet. The 
vicar added to this a remark to the effect that 
all the King's doctors were false and disloyal, 
and should be dismissed ; the doctor to be ap- 
pointed in their place was to be chosen more for 
his attachment to the old Church than for his 
medical science, and, in the meanwhile, the King's 
abode and garments were to be changed and the 
exorcisms continued. 

The vicar was thereupon again gravely rebuked 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 311 

for daring to say that the King's physicians are 
disloyal, but they, the friend and the master, will 
refrain from employing them. A further letter of 
November 26th urges the vicar not to stand any 
more of the Devil's nonsense. Tell him he must 
give the names and addresses, as the friend and the 
master are put to great trouble seeking them, and 
he is exhorted to be diligent in completing the good 
work he has begun, as the King is much better for 
the exorcisms administered to him. The doctors 
were, of course, nominees of the new dominant 
French party, and the friend and master did not 
like their loyalty to be called into question ; but the 
vicar was firm, so they were changed, and the poor 
King was taken on his journey to Toledo and 
Alcala. He certainly had got much better, and 
Stanhope ascribes his improvement to the plasters 
of his new Aragonese doctor, or "rather," he says, 
" what I believe has done more is that he has of 
late drunk two or three glasses of pure wine at 
every meal, whereas he has never taken anything 
before in all his life but water boiled with a little 
cinnamon." 

As soon as the Kino- was well enough, the 
intrigue that had been brewing since the new con- 
fessor had got a footing was completed, and the 
third claimant to the succession, the young Prince 
of Bavaria, was solemnly adopted as heir to the 
crown. This, of course, offended most of the great 
Powers of Europe, but it had the effect of recon- 
ciling with each other the Spanish courtiers who had 
espoused either the French or the Austrian cause, 
and for a few months, until the new heir died, the 
Court quarrels were patched up. Still the inquiries 



312 THE EXORCISM OF 

of the Devil went on, and the vicar stumbled and 
blundered deeper into the mire. He tried to 
correct his mistake about the street where the first 
witch lived by saying that the street called Herreros 
was now the Cerrajeros, and the surname of the 
witch was Perez, the commonest name in Spain. 
The secretary wrote to say that the friend and the 
master could not make head or tail of it all, and 
begged the Devil to be more explicit — first he said 
the witch was alive, and then dead. The King 
was much better. 

By this time, the beginning of the year 1699, 
the vicar evidently thought that, as he had so far 
come out of the affair with flying colours, he 
ought to be brought to the capital and placed on 
the main road of promotion, instead of being kept 
in a remote village : and he wrote that the Devil 
had declared that the whole truth could only be 
divulged in the church of the Virgin of Atocha 
in Madrid, and that as he, vicar, had begun it, so 
he must conduct the affair to the end. A week 
or two later he wrote, again pressing to be allowed 
to carry on the rest of the conjuration at the Atocha, 
in order, as he says, to reanimate the devotion 
to the image, which he thought was cooling-. He 
gives the name of the second witch as Maria Diez, 
another extremely common name, and then falls ill, 
sulks, and refuses to invoke the Devil again except 
at the Atocha. Still his correspondents continue to 
press him for fresh signs and information, without re- 
sult except to produce fresh demands that he should 
be brought to Madrid. The confederates, however, 
deemed this too dangerous, and the correspondence 
with Arglielles closes in the month of May, 1699. 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 313 

About this time the Queen's suspicions were 
aroused by a hint dropped by the King, and 
she at once set spies around those who had 
access to the monarch's room, particularly Froilan 
Diaz. She soon learnt something of what was 
going on, and, as the chronicler says, "roared 
from very rage." She called her friends together, 
and in a tearing passion told them what she had 
discovered, demanding immediate vengeance on 
the King's confessor. Some of her friends, parti- 
cularly Folch de Cardona, were cooler-headed than 
she was, and pointed out that as the Grand Inquisitor 
was mixed up in the business, it would be imprudent 
to take any steps until it was seen how far the holy 
tribunal itself was implicated, and that in any case 
the Queen's vengeance should be wreaked on 
Froilan by the action of the Inquisition if possible, 
so that she might avoid the unpopularity of ap- 
pearing in the matter herself. 

The next day Folch de Cardona sounded his 
inquisitor brother, and found that the Council of 
the Holy Office knew nothing of what was going 
on, and when the Inquisitor was informed and asked 
whether the. tribunal would consider Froilan guilty if 
the facts were proved, he cautiously answered his 
brother that he would not venture of himself to de- 
cide, but personally he considered so much hobnob- 
bing with the Devil both delicate and dano-erous. In 
June the Grand Inquisitor Rocaberti died suddenly, 
probably of poison, and left Froilan to face the matter 
alone ; and a few days afterwards a report was sent 
from Germany, having been transmitted to the 
Emperor by the Bishop of Vienna, containing a 
declaration, said to have been made by the Devil to 



3H THE EXORCISM OF 

an exorciser in the church of St. Sophia, to the 
effect that Charles II. was bewitched by a certain 
woman called Isabel living in the Calle de Silva, 
in Madrid, and that if search were made the in- 
struments of her incantations would be found 
beneath the threshold of her house. The Queen 
thought to prove that this was another of Froilan's 
tricks, and had the whole matter discussed by the 
Inquisition, who, however, could find nothing to 
connect him with it, but proceeded to excavate the 
spot indicated in the Calle de Silva, and there found 
sundry dolls and figures dressed in uniforms, which 
dolls were borne in solemn procession and burnt 
with all the ceremonies of the Church at the end of 
July. All this was of course conveyed to the King 
by Froilan, and it, together with the positive assur- 
ance that he was bewitched given to him by a 
German exorciser named Mauro Tenda, who had 
been secretly summoned to Spain, threw the poor 
creature into such an agony of terror that his state 
became more and more pitiable. 

In September a mad woman in a state of frenzy 
presented herself at the palace and demanded 
audience. She was refused admittance, and there- 
upon began to scream and struggle in a way that 
attracted the attention of the King, who told his 
attendants to admit her. She burst in foaming 
and shrieking with a crucifix in her hand, cursing 
and blaspheming at the poor trembling King, 
and she had to be borne out again on the 
shoulders of the guards, the King nearly dying of 
fright on the spot. The maniac was followed, 
and it was found that she lived with two other 
demoniacs, one of whom was under the impres- 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 315 

sion that they were keeping the King subject in 
their room. This nonsense was also conveyed to 
the monarch, who was now thoroughly persuaded 
that he was under the influence of sorcery, and he 
ordered that all three of the women should be 
exorcised by the German monk. This was done, 
Froilan standing by and dictating the questions that 
were to be asked of the Devil by the exorciser. 
Unfortunately for the confessor, the questions he 
asked were rather leading ones, in which his desire 
to injure the Queen was evident. " Who was it," 
he asked, " that had caused the King's malady ? " 
The answer o-iven was that it was a beautiful 
woman. "Was it the Queen?" was next de- 
manded, to which the reply was somewhat con- 
fusing, as it was merely the name of an unknown 
man, " Don Juan Palia." " Is he a relative of the 
Queen ? What countryman is he ? " received no 
reply ; but when the Devil was asked in what form 
the charm had been administered he said, "In 
snuff." "Any of it left?" "Yes, in the desk." 
"What queen was it that caused the malady? " was 
again asked. "The dead one," said the Devil. 
"Is there any other charm?" "Yes." "Who 
gave it ? " Maria de la Presentacion." " Who 
ordered it ? " " Don Antonio de la Paz." " When 
was it o-iven ? " No answer. " Of what was it 
made ? " " Of a dog's bone." " Why did you send 
the woman to frighten the King?" No answer. 
Other questions and answers were given of the 
same sort, the latter mentioning at random the 
names of unknown people, and in some cases 
libelling the Queen and the 'ministers — all of it 
obviously the babble of a mad woman. Secret 



316 THE EXORCISM OF 

though the exorcism was, the Queen had a full 
report of it, and was of course furious with rage at 
the open attempt to cast upon her the blame of the 
witchcraft. 

The first step towards her revenge was to get 
a new Grand Inquisitor in her interest, and 
she pressed the King to appoint her friend Folch 
de Cardona. He refused, no doubt prompted by 
his confessor Froilan, and, notwithstanding the 
Queen's passionate protests, appointed a second son 
of one of the noblest houses in Spain, Cardinal 
Cordoba, to whom the King unburdened himself 
completely, and Froilan told the whole story of the 
exorcism from beoinninof to end. From these con- 
fabulations a most extraordinary resolution was 
arrived at. Probably the Queen herself was too 
high game to fly at, so the new Grand Inquisitor 
and his friends decided that the Devil and the 
Admiral of Castile, the late Prime Minister, were 
at the bottom of all the King's trouble, and they 
ordered the Admiral with his papers to be secretly 
seized and imprisoned by the Inquisition of Granada, 
whilst all his household were incarcerated in another 
prison. They had no doubt, they said, that he 
would confess all, even if his papers did not incrimi- 
nate him. No action, however, could be taken until 
the new Grand Inquisitor's appointment was ratified 
by the Pope ; but on the very day the bull of ratifi- 
cation arrived the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor died 
of poison, and the Queen once again urged her 
nominee for the place, but without success as before. 
She then cast about for an ambitious man who was 
unobjectionable to her opponents, but who might 
nevertheless be bought over by her. She found 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 317 

him in the person of Mendoza, Bishop of Segovia, 
to whom she promised her support and a cardinal's 
hat if he would serve her. He was appointed 
Grand Inquisitor, and the Queen had now the whip- 
hand of her enemy, the confessor. First the 
German monk was netted, and under torture by 
the Inquisition made a clean breast of his exorcism 
in the Calle del Olmo, when Froilan was present. 
Then a monk of the Atocha, who had been sent by 
the Provincial to investigate the strange doings of 
Friar Argiielles at Cangas, produced the letters 
from the "friend and the master," and told the 
story of the conjurations. This was quite enough 
evidence to ruin Froilan, and he was apprehended. 
He refused to answer any questions, as all he had 
done had been by the King's own orders, and as 
the confessor of his Majesty his mouth was closed. 
He was at once dismissed from his offices, and the 
Grand Inquisitor appealed to the King to allow all 
privileges to be waived, and his confessor punished. 
Poor Charles the Bewitched was dying in good 
earnest now, and could only mumble out that they 
might do justice. But Froilan had powerful friends 
both at Court and in the Council of the Inquisition, 
and before the blow fell he retired, ostensibly to his 
monastery, but thence fled to the coast, and so to 
Rome. But he was not safe even there, for the 
Grand Inquisitor had him seized for heresy by the 
Papal officers and brought back to Spain. Then 
came the long struggle between the Inquisition and 
its head. First, Froilan's case was submitted to the 
theological committee of the Holy Office, who unani- 
mously absolved him. On June 23, 1700, he was 
fully acquitted by the General Council of the 



318 THE EXORCISM OF 

Inquisition, the Grand Inquisitor alone voting" for 
his secret imprisonment without further trial. 

At the next meeting of the full Council, to the 
intense surprise of the members, a decree for the 
secret imprisonment of Froilan was placed before 
them for signature. They unanimously refused to 
sign it, and came to high words — almost blows — 
with their chief, who threatened them all with dire 
consequences for their obstinacy, and, to show that 
he was in earnest, there and then sent five of them 
down to their dungeons on his own responsibility. 
This was too high-handed even for the meekest of 
the Inquisitors, and the Council broke up in confusion. 
The Council of Castile, the supreme advisers of the 
Crown, appealed at once to the King against the 
imprisonment of the Inquisitors ; but the King was 
helpless now, for the Queen and a new confessor 
were at his bedside, bound to stand by the Grand 
Inquisitor through thick and thin. They got the 
dying King to sign a decree appointing new 
Inquisitors enough to swamp the votes of those 
left, but lo and behold ! they turned against their 
own creator at the very first meeting, and refused 
to endorse the Grand Inquisitor's action, either as 
to the imprisonment of Froilan or that of the 
Inquisitors. The strong man who led the revolt 
was Lorenzo Folch de Cardona, the brother of the 
Queen's old friend, now Bishop of Valencia, and 
it was decided that he must be silenced somehow. 
They offered him a bishopric, which he refused. 
They threatened him with prison and banishment, 
and he told them that they dared not touch him ; 
and he was 'right, for all Madrid was looking on. 
Then the Inquisitor-General sent the case to be 



CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 319 

judged by a provincial council of the Inquisition at 
Murcia, which was subservient to him, but the 
General Council at Madrid told them they would 
be acting illegally if they decided against the 
verdict already given by the Committee of Theo- 
logians and the General Council, and even they did 
not dare to find Froilan guilty. In the meanwhile, 
guilty or not guilty, the poor man was kept a close 
prisoner in a dark cell of a monastery of the 
Dominican Order, to which he belonged. 

In November, 1700, the King died, and the Grand 
Inquisitor was one of the regents, making himself 
remarkable for his splendour and ostentation during 
the short period of uncertainty after the King's 
death. But the arrival of the French King, Philip 
V., put an end to the Queen's hopes, and the Grand 
Inquisitor was sent off in disgrace to his diocese. 
As soon as his back was turned the General 
Council of the Inquisition, with Folch de Cardona 
in the chair, demanded of Prior of the Atocha 
by what right he still kept Froilan in prison. His 
answer was that he did so on the warrant of the 
Grand Inquisitor. An appeal was made to the 
King, but the fortune of war kept Philip for ever 
on the move, and for years no decision was given. 
In the meanwhile the Pope espoused the cause of 
the Inquisitor-General, and protested against his 
deprivation. The King appointed a new Inquisitor- 
General, and the Pope vetoed the appointment. Then 
the Pope sent special power to the old Grand Inqui- 
sitor to sentence Froilan to whatever punishment he 
liked without more ado, and the Council of the Inquisi- 
tion and Folch de Cardona protested to the King 
against the attempt of the Pope to override the 



320 EXORCISM OF CHARLES THE BEWITCHED. 

law of Spain ; and at last Philip V. put his foot 
down once for all — dismissed the Inquisitor-General, 
reappointed the old Council, and authorised them 
to release Froilan in the King's name. They found 
him, after five years' close confinement, nearly blind 
in the dungeons of the monastery of the Atocha, 
and brought him out in triumph to be appointed 
Bishop of Avila. In vain the Pope protested and 
the dismissed Grand Inquisitor fumed. Philip the 
Magnanimous was a very different monarch from 
Charles the Bewitched. The black bigotry of the 
House of Austria was gone, and thenceforward, 
though the Holy Office existed in the land for a 
century longer, the arbitrary power of the Inquisition 
to override the law of the land was gone with it. 




A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 



22 




PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN. 

(After the painting by Velasquez.) 




A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF 
AUSTRIA.* 



No dead and gone human visage looms so clearly- 
through the mist of ages as that strange lymphatic 
face of Philip IV., which the genius of Velazquez 
delighted to portray from youth to age. The 
smooth-faced stripling in hunting dress, with his 
fair pink and white complexion, his lank yellow 
hair, and his great mumbling Austrian mouth, 
shows more plainly on canvas than he could have 
done whilst alive how weak of will and how 
potent of passion he was, how easily he would 
be led by the overbearing Count- Duke of Olivares 
to sacrifice all else for splendid shows and sensuous 
indulgence ; how his vanity would be flattered by 
poets, painters, and players, whilst the world-wide 
empire of his fathers was crumbling to nothingness 

1 The Gentleman's Magazine, September, 1892. 

323 



324 A SPRIG OF 

beneath his sway, and his vassals were being robbed 
of their last maravedi to pay for the frenzy of waste 
and prodigality with which Charles Stuart was 
entertained or a royal wedding celebrated. Thence- 
forward, through his fastuous prime, stately and 
splendid in his black satin and gold, to the time 
when, old and disappointed, with forty years of 
disastrous domination, the rheumy eyes drawn and 
haggard, but the head still erect, haughty and 
unapproachable in its reserve, the great painter tells 
the King's story better than any pen could write it. 
There is something not unlovable in the shy, weak, 
poetic face, and one can pity the lad with such a 
countenance who found himself the greatest king 
on earth at the age of sixteen, surrounded by 
fawning flatterers and greedy bloodsuckers who 
plunged him into a vortex of dissipation before his 
father's body was cold in the marble sarcophagus at 
the Escurial. The old man's face, too, cold and 
repellent as it is, shocking as are the ravages that 
time and self-indulgence have stamped upon it, has 
yet in it an almost plaintive despair that explains 
those terrible broken-hearted letters in which the 
King, icy and undemonstrative as he was, poured 
out his agony and sorrow undisguised for years to 
the only person in the wide world he trusted, the 
nun Maria de Agreda. 

His long reign, which saw the ruin of the 
Spanish power, witnessed also the most splendid 
epoch of Spanish art and literature, the golden 
age of the Spanish stage, and a wasteful prodi- 
gality of magnificence in the Court such as, with 
the exception of that displayed by Philip's son- 
in-law, the Roi-soleil, the world has never seen 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 325 

equalled. The Elizabethan age in England may 
have approached it in literary strength, although 
even that cannot show such a galaxy as Lope 
de Vega, Calderon, Velazquez, Murillo, Tirso de 
Molina, Moreto, Quevedo, Guevara, Montalvan, 
and their host of imitators. The history of the 
reign has never yet been adequately or even fairly 
written. Isolated portions and detached incidents 
or personalities have been dealt with, and stray 
fragments now and again bring vivid pictures of 
the sumptuous Court before us. Spanish writers, of 
late years particularly, are fond of dwelling with 
microscopic minuteness on the incidents and adven- 
tures of the time that happened at particular spots 
in the capital ; but the topographical-historical 
style, first introduced by Mesonero Romanos, and 
now so popular, pleasant reading as it is, does not 
attempt to do more than amuse by presenting 
romantic and detached pictures of a bygone age, 
and all that can be claimed by the writers is that 
materials are gradually being collected and brought 
to light by them from contemporary sources which 
will be invaluable to the future serious historian of 
the reign. 

The British Museum contains many hundreds 
of unpublished manuscripts bearing upon the sub- 
ject — copies of official documents, letters, and 
" relations " from Philip's Court, petitions and 
statements of grievance addressed to the King, 
and vast collections of miscellaneous papers in 
Spanish, Portuguese, and French, most of which 
have not yet been consulted for historical purposes. 
Amongst a great mass of rather dry official docu- 
ments of the period, most of them copies, I recently 



326 



A SPRIG OF 



came across a small, compact group of papers, all 
originals, telling a curious, plaintive little story, 
nakedly enough, it is true, but not without a pathos 
of its own. There is nothing historically important 
in it, or in the fact that it discloses probably for the 
first time since it happened, but a quaint side-light 
is thrown by some of the documents on the way 
in which Court intrigue was conducted, and also, 
curiously enough, on the opinion of the highest 
authorities of those times as to the best way of 
bringing up a child, by which it will be seen that, 
allowing" for difference of climate and national 
habits, no great change has taken place in this 
respect in the two centuries and a half that have 
passed since the papers were penned. 

Philip had succeeded to the throne on the death 
of his father in March, 1621. He was only six- 
teen, and Olivares at once plunged him into such 
distractions as the then most dissolute capital in 
Europe could afford. By a strange coincidence 
the paper in the Museum (Egerton MSS., 329) 
which precedes the group of which I wish to speak 
is a lengthy and solemn letter, dated only a few 
weeks after the young King's accession, addressed 
to the Count- Duke by the Archbishop of Granada, 
remonstrating with the all-powerful favourite for 
taking the boy-king out in the street at night. 
" People," he says, "are gossiping about it all over 
Madrid, and things are being said which add little 
to the sovereign's credit or dignity." Madrid even 
now is fond of scandal, but in the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, isolated from the world as was 
the capital of the Spains, its one absorbing pursuit 
from morn till night was tittle-tattle, and the long 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 327 

raised walk by the side wall of the church of St. 
Philip, fronting" the Ofiate palace in the Calle 
Mayor, was a recognised exchange for the scandal- 
mongers. The Archbishop says, in his bold and 
outspoken letter, that not only have these people 
begun to whisper things that were better unsaid, 
but the example shown by the King and his 
minister in scouring the streets in search of adven- 
ture is a bad one for the people at large, and he 
reminds Olivares of the anxiety of the late King 
on this very account, and his dread that his heir was 
already before his death being inducted into dissipa- 
tion. The answer to the bold prelate's remonstrance 
is just such as might be expected from the insolent 
favourite. He tells him in effect that he is an 
impertinent meddler, and ought to be ashamed, 
with his rank, and at his age, to trouble him with 
the vulgar gossip of the street. The King, he tells 
him, is sixteen and he (Olivares) is thirty-four, and 
it is not to be expected that they are to be kept in 
darkness as to what is done in the world. It is 
good that the King should see all phases of life, 
bad as well as good. He (Olivares) never trusts 
the King with any one else ; and the favourite 
finishes his answer by a scarcely veiled threat that 
if the Archbishop does not mind his own business 
worse may befall him. No doubt the prelate took 
the warning, for Olivares was not scrupulous, and 
had a short and secret way with those who incurred 
his displeasure. 

The small group of original papers coming after 
this begins with a memorandum unsigned, but 
evidently written by Olivares to the King some 
nine years subsequently, namely, early in the 



328 



A SPRIG OF 



summer of 1630. It says that it is high time that 
measures should be taken at once to put a boy, 
whose name is not given, out of the way, as he 
is now four years old, and it is of great importance 
that he should be concealed, and all communication 
broken off between him and the people with whom 
he has been. The writer goes on to say that he 
has considered deeply how this is to be done, and 
that there are objections to be found in every 
solution that presents itself, but he thinks on the 
whole the best way will be to entrust him secretly 
to the care of a gentleman of his acquaintance 
named Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez, who lives at 
Salamanca. He is a person of education, has 
travelled all over Europe, and could bring the lad 
up as his own. It will be necessary to see this 
gentleman first, and the writer proposes to summon 
him to Court without telling him the reason, so that 
" Your Majesty" may see him and then decide for 
the best. Across this document is written in 
Philip's uncertain, poetic hand : "It appears very 
necessary that something should be done in this 
matter and I approve of what you suggest. — P." 

Presumably Ydiaquez was sent for and approved 
of, as the next document in the series is of a much 
more formal character, being a notarial deed drawn 
up by the Secretary of State, Geronimo de Villa- 
nueva as prothonotary of the kingdom, who was, 
with the exception of Olivares, the principal confi- 
dant of Philip's intrigues. 1 This deed, dated 

1 He was with difficulty rescued from the direst vengeance 
of the Inquisition a few years afterwards in consequence of 
his too ready co-operation in the King's amorous tendencies. 
Don Geronimo was patron of the convent of San Placido, 
next door to his own house in the Calle de la Madera in 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 329 

June 1, 1 63 1, recites that his Excellency Don 
Gaspar de Guzman, Count of Olivares, Duke of 
San Lucar, Grand Councillor of the Indies, Coun- 
cillor of State, and Master of the Horse, delivers 

Madrid, and had inflamed the King's mind with stories of a 
very beautiful nun who was an inmate of the convent. Philip 
and his favourite, the Count-Duke, insisted upon seeing this 
paragon of loveliness, and Don Geronimo, exerting his 
authority as patron, procured them entrance in disguise to 
the parlour, where, as was to be expected, his Catholic 
Majesty fell violently in love with the beautiful nun. The 
interviews in the parlour were constant but, with the grating 
between the King and his flame, unsatisfactory, and, by dint 
of bribes and threats, Don Geronimo managed to break a 
passage from the cellars of his own house into the vaults of 
the convent, by means of which, notwithstanding the prayers, 
the entreaties, and appeals of the abbess, the King was intro- 
duced into the cell of the unfortunate nun of whom he was 
enamoured. He found her laid out as if she were a corpse, 
surrounded with lighted tapers, with a great crucifix by her 
side, but not even this availed, and the sacrilegious amours 
continued so long that the news reached the ever-open ears 
of the Holy Office. The Grand Inquisitor, a Dominican friar 
called Antonio de Sotomayor, Archbishop of Damascus, 
privately took the King to task, and obtained a promise that 
the offence should cease. Don Geronimo was seized by the 
officers of the Inquisition (August 30, 1644), and taken to 
Toledo, where he was accused of sacrilege and other heinous 
crimes against the faith. The evidence was full and conclu- 
sive, and Don Geronimo's life was trembling in the balance, 
when the Count-Duke boldly went to the Grand Inquisitor 
one night with two signed royal decrees in his hands, one 
giving the Archbishop 12,000 ducats a year for life on 
condition of his resignation of the Grand Inquisitorship, and 
the other depriving him of all his temporalities, and banishing 
him for ever from all the dominions of his Catholic Majesty. 
The Grand Inquisitor naturally chose the former, and resigned 
next morning. Pressure was put on Pope Urban VIII. by 
the Spanish Ambassador, and very shortly an order arrived 
from Rome that the whole of the documents and evidence 
in the case were to be sealed up and sent in a box by a 
messenger of the Holy Office to his Holiness himself for 
decision. The messenger chosen was one of the Inquisition 
notaries called Alfonso Paredes. The Count-Duke, under 
various pretexts, delayed this man's departure for some 



33Q 



A SPRIG OF 



a boy named Francisco Fernando, aged over four 

years to Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez, this boy being 

the person referred to but not named in his 

Majesty's warrant, under his sign manual, addressed 

to Don Juan Isassi, and countersigned and delivered 

to him by the Secretary of State. The deed directs 

that Don Juan is to bring up the boy and educate 

him in conformity with the instructions to be given 

to him by the Count-Duke, by his Majesty's orders, 

and Don Juan himself undertakes in the deed to 

deliver up the person of the said Don Francisco 

Fernando when required, and to obey implicitly 

in all things the directions of the Count- Duke with 

regard to him. He promises to bring him up and 

rear him as he is ordered to do in the royal 

warrant. The deed is signed by the Count- Duke, 

weeks, and in the meanwhile had good portraits of him 
painted and sent by special messengers to all the ports in 
Italy where he was likely to land, and orders were sent to 
the Spanish agents to capture him at all risks. On the night 
of his arrival at Genoa, by the connivance of the authorities, 
he was seized, gagged, and carried off to Naples, where he 
was imprisoned for the rest of his life, condemned to per- 
petual silence on pain of instant death. The box of papers 
that he bore was sent privately to the King, who, with 
Olivares, burnt the contents without even opening the packet. 
The new Grand Inquisitor, who was a creature of the Queen, 
a Benedictine monk named Diego de Arce, was not to be 
entirely balked, and although no evidence now existed, he 
had the prothonotary Don Geronimo Villanueva brought 
from his prison in Toledo, where he had languished for two 
years, and placed before the tribunal of the Inquisition. He 
was stripped of his arms, accoutrements, insignia of rank and 
outer clothing, and sat upon a plain low wooden stool, and 
then, without any evidence being given or statement of 
specific offence, was condemned for irreligion, sacrilege, 
superstition, and other enormities, and, by the mercy of the 
Holy Office, was absolved from all this on condition that he 
fasted every Friday for a year, never again entered the 
convent, and gave 2,000 ducats to the poor through the 
monks of Atocha. 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 331 

Isassi, the King's secretary Carnero, and two 
servants, and is attested in notarial form by Villa- 
nueva, as prothonotary of the kingdom. 

Then comes the King's warrant, under Philip's 
own sign manual, in the fine old Spanish form : — 

"The King — Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez. The 
Count- Duke will deliver to you a boy in whose 
education and virtuous bringing up you will serve 
me well and with absolute secrecy, following therein 
all the orders given to you by the Count- Duke. 
I, the Kinsf." 

It is clear that this Don Francisco Fernando 
was no ordinary babe of four to require the personal 
attention of all these high and mighty gentlemen 
in sending him to school. Philip had one child 
by his wife at this time, the chubby youngster Don 
Baltasar, who for all time will prance on his stout 
bay cob on the canvas of Velazquez, and only the 
year previous, in 1629, there had been born to the 
King, by the beautiful actress, Maria Calderon, the 
idol of the Spanish stage, a boy who in the fulness 
of time was to become that second great Don 
John of Austria, the last virile man of his race ; 
but Don Francisco Fernando was the first-born, 
and apparently his mother was of far superior social 
rank to the jaunty " Calderona," so that he was no 
doubt, baby as he was, destined for great things. 
The instructions given by the Count- Duke to Don 
Juan Isassi with regard to the care of his charge 
are minute to the last degree, and reflect in every 
line the great importance that is attached to the 
identification of the child. The long document 
begins by saying that the boy delivered to Don 
Juan is the illegitimate son of the King by the 



332 A SPRIG OF 

daughter G f a o-entleman, and was born in the 
house of his grandparents, between eleven and 
twelve at night, on May 15, 1626. Don Francisco 
Eraso, Count of Humanes, took the midwife, and 
was present at the birth ; conveying the infant as 
soon as it was born to the house of Don Baltasar 
de Alamos y Barrientos, Councillor of the Treasury, 
where a nurse was awaiting him, and the child 
had there remained until its delivery to Don Juan. 
After impressing upon Don Juan the need for the 
most exquisite care to be taken of the child's life 
and health, and arranging for the nurses and 
doctor who have had the care of him to accompany 
him to Salamanca for the first few months of the 
change, the Count- Duke instructs Don Juan to 
seek a good doctor to be kept at hand permanently, 
who is not to be told who the boy is unless his 
services are required, and in the meanwhile is 
to receive a good salary. "His Majesty," says 
Olivares, "has confided this care to me, and I 
depend upon you to carry out the task." 

First of all the child was to be well taught in 
religion and morality ; secondly, on no account was 
he to learn who he was, and if his attendants have 
already told him incautiously he is to be allowed 
to forget it, and "neither by word nor behaviour 
is he to be made to think that he is not an ordinary 
person ; " thirdly, he is to be taught polite learning 
and languages, particularly Italian and French, to 
dance, fence, and play tennis, and, when he is a 
little older, to ride. He is to be treated familiarly 
and without ceremony, and, " in short, to be 
educated and brought up with the virtues and 
nobleness of royalty, and the study, modesty, know- 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 333 

ledge, and temperance of a private person." Don 
Juan is to send a weekly report to the Count- Duke 
through his secretary Carreras, but to take care 
that this is done with the utmost secrecy, and on 
no account is the child to be shown to any one 
without a written order. As secrecy is of the 
first importance 500 (ducats) a month only are 
ordered to be paid, besides the doctor's fees, and 
Don Juan is to devise some means for the secret 
payment of this sum. A coach is to be secretly got 
ready to meet the Count- Duke and the child on the 
night and at the place which may be appointed for 
the delivery ; and then, after another urgent in- 
junction of secrecy and care of the child's religious 
instruction, and a fervent prayer that God will give 
to the little one "all the happiness, spiritual and 
temporal, which He will see is necessary and good 
for the realm," the proud favourite signs himself 
simply Gaspar de Guzman. 

The hidalgo of Salamanca appears to have been 
quite overwhelmed at the honour done him by the 
charge of so important a person, and his ceremonious 
and verbose letter of thanks to the Count- Duke 
needed hardly to be prefaced by the prayer that his 
patron will not attribute his laconic speech to the 
proverbial taciturnity of his countrymen, but rather 
to his confusion at the greatness of the honour done 
him by his Majesty, for which words are inadequate 
to express his gratitude. His only thanks can be 
his faithful fulfilment of orders. He begs that the 
doctor who has had the care of the little one may 
be sent to Salamanca with him in order to consult 
with Don Juan's doctor, and ascertain whether he 
is fit to undertake so important a charge, and if 



334 A SPRIG OF 

not he will approach cautiously a doctor in Vitoria, 
named Trevifio, of whom he hears good accounts. 
The woman who accompanies the child shall stay 
with him some short time, although the good 
hidalgo is evidently rather doubtful of this arrange- 
ment, as he adds that if she should find the horizon 
of their dull country life too confined for her after 
Madrid, or begins to kick against the discipline, 
other arrangements will have to be made. All 
care shall be taken to prevent the boy from learning 
who he is, and if it should get wind efforts shall be 
made to silence it, but the task will be a difficult 
one. The child shall be so reared, please God, 
that he shall not become abject or servile (which is 
most important to a royal personage), or licentious 
and headstrong ; and the good hidalgo thereupon 
breaks out into a mild pedantic little joke by 
quoting a Latin proverb, to the effect that, to attain 
so great an object as this, one must be prepared 
to eat salt and acrid food, which, he says, will be 
easy for him to do, "as we all live on salt bacon 
and hung beef in my province." This does not 
sound very promising, nor does his description of 
the water they have to drink, which he says is bad 
to drink raw, particularly in the summer, and needs 
cinnamon or other spice to correct it. The doctor, 
he says, will advise whether they had better boil it 
with mastic or some other drug. The correspon- 
dence shall be sent weekly through " my nephew, 
Don Alonso Ibarra Isassi, the eldest of the lads I 
took to Madrid with me. He is a good, prudent, 
and modest lad, and a correspondence between us 
as uncle and nephew will arouse no suspicion." 
As for the 500 ducats a month payment, the 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 335 

good hidalgo says his cheeks burn with shame as 
he writes or even thinks about them ; " but if your 
Excellency should deign to order them to be paid 
to me they might be sent without attracting notice 
through the treasury at Vitoria or Burgos." 

So the little child is sent to Salamanca, and with 
him goes the ponderously learned Dr. Cristobal 
Nunez, who wraps up the simplest facts in the most 
complicated and pedantic technical phraseology, and, 
what is far more troublesome for the present pur- 
pose, writes a shockingly bad hand. His first docu- 
ment is a microscopic report of the constitution and 
temperament of the child, and the simple history of 
his baby ailments. The description is most curious ; 
and, if any doubt existed as to his paternity, every 
trait indicates the character and appearance of a son 
of the sovereign race of Austria. " He is," says the 
learned doctor, "of melancholic, choleric tempera- 
ment, wilful and passionate, but playful when he 
is pleased, and respectful to those he thinks his 
superiors. He is of sound constitution, being 
the offspring of young and healthy parents ; pos- 
sesses superior intelligence for his age ; a wonderful 
memory, which gives great hope if he be well 
trained. He is slow of speech, and expresses him- 
self with great difficulty, stuttering and lisping ; and 
is so backward on his feet that he has only just 
learnt to walk. His person is so perfect and beauti- 
ful, that the mind of a sculptor never imagined any- 
thing better ; he has a lovely, fair, red and white 
complexion, and full grey eyes. He is grave and 
thoughtful — not dull or sad, but full of childish 
humour ; quick to laugh and quick to cry. He is," 
says the doctor, "high of spirit, courageous, and 



336 A SPRIG OF 

pugnacious, impatient of contradiction ; and, if his 
speech be not at once understood, he flies into such 
ungovernable rage as to make it dangerous to thwart 
him, and he should rather be coaxed to obedience 
than forced." 

Like all his forbears, he is described as a great 
eater, and very fond of sweets ; and it is not sur- 
prising to learn that he has all his short life suffered 
from over-eating and indigestion, and for long past 
has had quartan ague. The drastic remedies of the 
times were endured by the child, the doctor says, 
"without weeping, as if he knew they were for his 
o-ood " ; but the learned medico confesses that all his 
own prescriptions had done the babe less good 
than what he describes as an old wife's remedy 
of anointing the stomach and spine with ointment 
and saffron. 

The child's usual mode of life is carefully des- 
cribed. Between eight and nine in the morning he 
had a fowl's liver and a little loaf, or else some 
bread or cake sopped in broth, or bread and jam 
and a cup of water. At twelve o'clock broth with 
sippets of bread or half of the breast of a fowl, or 
sometimes some forcemeat balls, as he likes a 
change, and demands it. When he gets tired of 
this he may have a little loin of mutton or the leg 
of a fowl. He is also very fond of a piece of bacon 
between two slices of bread, and of quince marma- 
lade, jams, and sweets. At five o'clock he "packs 
his wallet," as the doctor calls it, by a meal of bread 
and jam, and a cup of water. He is put to bed at 
nine o'clock, and sleeps with his nurse. The learned 
Don Cristobal then enters into a most verbose dis- 
quisition as to the fitness of the locality chosen for 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 337 

the temperament of the child, and arrives at the 
conclusion that the choice has been a wise one, 
although the roundabout method of argument 
founded on wise talk about blood and humours and 
vapours and the like seems rather beside the mark 
to a modern reader. The sum of it all is, however, 
that Don Juan de Isassi's house stands healthily, if 
somewhat bleakly, on high ground about three bow- 
shots from the town, and joining the great convent 
of the Suceso, the house itself being a good one, 
surrounded by its own grounds. 

Thus far the doctor has only spoken of the con- 
stitution and past management of his late charge ; 
but the next document, which bears the same date 
as the preceding one (June 18, 1630), lays down an 
elaborate plan for the future rearing of the child. 
He recommends that he should be allowed to play 
after his early supper, and not be sent to sleep 
before nine at night, unless he feels sleepy. He is 
to be woke at eight, if he is not already awake, and 
is to be given his light breakfast of a fowl's liver and 
cake, a rasher of bacon and bread and broth, or a 
roasted esfSf. At eleven or twelve he is to dine on 
forcemeat balls, made of two parts chicken, one part 
mutton, and one part bacon, with a little pie or 
broth with sippets. Sometimes, instead of force- 
meat balls, he may have the leg of a fowl, which, 
if he likes it, will be enough for him, with a little 
bread soaked in broth, or he may have a mouthful 
of mutton with chicken broth. It will be well, says 
the courtly doctor, that the gentleman himself should 
be consulted occasionally as to whether he preferred 
the fowl or the sausages, or roast or boiled food. 
He is to sleep about an hour and a half after dinner, 

23 



338 A SPRIG OF 

and play in the afternoon ; but great care must be 
taken to keep him out of the sun, and his early 
supper may be as heretofore, only somewhat later ; 
a biscuit or two with jam, a small egg, such as the 
fowls of the province lay, or sippets in broth. A 
curious and somewhat elaborate little dish is recom- 
mended for occasional breakfast or supper. " Take," 
says the doctor, " a half-dozen almonds or melon 
seeds, and press the juice from them, which mix 
with a little barley-cream and some good broth. 
This must be boiled, and sugar and sponge-cake 
worked into it until it is a smooth paste, which may 
be served with half a beaten egg over it, and will 
make a nice light supper." It will be good to 
excite the appetite by variety, and as the child gets 
older he may sometimes be given coarser food, and 
trout or other fresh fish. He must drink fresh 
spring water boiled with viper-grass, or mixed with 
cinnamon, according to the weather. He is always 
to have some fruit for dessert, unless it disagrees with 
him ; but much care must be taken to guard him 
from excess ; and he is to be specially sparing in 
drinking. Full common-sense directions are given 
with regard to his dress, and if he needs medicine 
his food must be reduced by one half, and a decoc- 
tion of mallow and camomile, honey and oil admini- 
stered. Red Alexandria honey is also recommended, 
quinces, oil of wormwood, and a variety of other 
remedies for simple ailments. 

There is yet another document from the doctor 
giving some further rules, apparently in answer to 
special questions. In it he again learnedly describes 
the child's constitution, his weak stomach and apt- 
ness to catch cold, inherited from his parents, his 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 339 

tendency to hydrocephalus, and his almost con- 
tinuous series of ailments since he was born, which, 
says the medico, would have killed him but for his 
strong constitution. From seven years old he was 
to eat fish and other Lenten fare, and at twelve years 
must be taught to fast. Above all, he is not to be 
brought up delicately or coddled, but encouraged to 
run and romp. Great care must be taken that he 
is not exposed to the cold, but he must be well 
wrapped up even in summer. Drugs are to be 
given sparingly, if at all : mallow, camomile, sweet 
almonds, black sugar or honey if wanted ; but he is 
not to be constantly dosed with red honey and other 
things as children usually are, and if he is really ill 
he is not to be lowered or bled much ; by which it 
will be seen that Dr. Cristobal Nunez, pedantic as 
he was, differed somewhat from the usual type of 
sangrados of the time. All this was between the 
1st and 1 8th of June, 1630, and it is to be supposed 
that the poor babe of the house of Austria lived his 
little life in and around the " Casa Solariegfa " of the 
Salamancan hidalgo for the next few years, although 
no record remains of it here. 

The next document of the series is a letter, 
dated nearly four years afterwards, March 17, 
1634, from the Secretary of State, Geronimo 
Villanueva, to Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez, saying 
that his Majesty had received with the deepest 
grief the news of the death of Don Francisco 
Fernando, who showed such bright promise for 
his tender years, and his Majesty highly appreci- 
ates all the care that has been taken of his 
education. The body is to be brought with the 
utmost secrecy in a coach to the royal monastery of 



340 A SPRIG OF 

St. Lorenzo (the Escurial), where it is to be buried, 
and advice is to be sent by confidential special 
messenger to Madrid when the corpse should 
arrive, in order that one of the Kings stewards 
may be there to receive it. All the other arrange- 
ments for the burial are made. The four years had 
apparently not been unprofitable ones to the hidalgo, 
as the next time his name appears he is a knight of 
Santiago and lord of the town of Ameyo, as well as 
of the castles of Isassi and Orbea. The date of the 
document is April 15, 1634, and again it is a 
notarial deed attested by the prothonotary of the 
kingdom, Don Geronimo Villanueva, setting forth 
that Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez delivered the body 
of Don Francisco Fernando, son of his Catholic 
Majesty Philip IV., whom God had taken to him- 
self, to the Marquis of Torres, the Bishop of Avila, 
and other nobles appointed by the King to receive 
it. The delivery was made in the porch of the 
cathedral, and we are told that the corpse was 
dressed in a red gown, bordered with gold, and lay 
in a coffin of black velvet. The coffin, which had 
been borne by Don Juan Isassi and his servant to 
the porch, was thence carried to the great hall of 
the monastery by certain of the King's gentlemen- 
in-waiting, and after the religious ceremonies had 
been performed, was taken to the vault by the 
monks of the Order and laid to rest. And so ended 
a little life which, like that of his half-brother 
Baltasar, if it had been spared, might have stayed 
the decay of the Spanish branch of the House of 
Austria. It is true that Don John of Austria sur- 
vived, and for a short time snatched his poor 
brother, Charles the Bewitched, from the clutches of 



THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 341 

his foolish mother and her low-born favourite, Valen- 
zuela, but who knows whether the strong, masterful 
spirit of the baby of four whom it was dangerous to 
thwart might not, if he had grown to manhood, 
have done more than his younger brother to keep 
the reins of power when once he grasped them. 
Poor trembling, white-faced Charles the Bewitched, 
with his leaden eyes and monstrous projecting jaw, 
a senile dodderer at thirty, wanted a strong, master- 
ful spirit like this to hold him up and shield him 
from the vultures that fought over the carcase 
before the poor creature was dead. 

But it was not to be, and the forgotten babe 
of the sovereign house was put with so many 
other princely corpses in that horrible " rotting 
place of princes," off the black marble stair 
of the regal pantheon of the Escurial, where, 
not so very many years ago, I saw a ghastly 
heap of princely and semi-princely skulls and leg- 
bones gathered up as they had fallen from the 
rotting coffins to the floor. There, all undistin- 
guished from the others, probably enough rests still, 
his very name never published, and his short exis- 
tence hardly known till now, Don Francis Ferdinand 
of Austria, one of the last male members of the 
Spanish branch of the sovereign house, which in 
four generations descended from the highest pinnacle 
of human greatness to contempt, disgrace, decrepi- 
tude and decay. 



THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE. 



THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE.* 



In the course of a recent search amongst the Sloane 
MSS. at the British Museum for a document of 
an entirely different character I chanced upon a 
manuscript which, so far as I have been able to 
discover, has never yet been described in print or 
received the attention it appears to deserve. It is 
a long, narrow book like an account book, in the 
Sloane binding, containing 244 pages of cramped 
and crowded little writing in faded ink on rough 
paper, recording the daily — almost hourly — move- 
ments of a man for eleven years, from the 1st of 
January, 1692-3, to the middle of April, 1704. It 
is written in Spanish — Englishman's Spanish, full of 
solecisms and English idioms, but fair and fluent 
Castilian for all that, and the diarist, thinking no 
doubt his secrets were safe in a language compara- 
tively little known at the time, has set down for his 
own satisfaction alone, and often in words that no 
amount of editing would render fit for publication, 
the daily life of one of the dissolute men about 
town, who roistered and ruffled in the coffee-houses 
and taverns of London at the end of the seventeenth 
century. Few men could hope to possess the keen 
1 The Gentleman's Magazine, November, 1891. 



345 



346 THE JOURNAL OF 

observation and diverting style of Samuel Pepys, or 
the sober judgment and foresight of stately John 
Evelyn, and this last contemporary diarist of theirs 
certainly cannot lay claim to any such qualities. 
He rarely records an impression or an opinion, and 
as a rule confines himself to a bald statement of his 
own movements and the people he meets day by 
day ; but still, even such as it is, the diary is full of 
quaint and curious suggestions of the intimate life 
of a London widely different from ours. The 
familiar names of the streets, nay, the very signs 
of the taverns, are the same now as then, but in 
every line of the fading brown ink may be gathered 
hints of the vast chasm that separates the busy 
crowded life of to-day from the loitering delibera- 
tion with which these beaux in swords and high- 
piled periwigs sauntered through their tavern- 
haunting existence. It strikes the imagination, 
too, to think that the man who thus sets down 
so coarsely and frankly the acts of his life must 
have listened, with however little appreciation, to 
the luminous talk of wondrous John Dryden at 
Will's coffee-house, most certainly knew the rising 
Mr. Addison, and probably met Matthew Prior at 
his old home at the "Rummer" tavern, which the 
diarist frequented. 

There is nothing in the manuscript directly to 
identify the writer, and probably the indirect clues 
furnished by references to his relatives have never 
before been followed up to prove exactly who the 
author was. The task has not been an easy one, 
and has started me on more than one false scent 
ending in a check, but at last I stumbled on 
evidence that not only absolutely identified the 



RICHARD BERE. 347 

diarist, but also explained many obscure passages 
in the manuscript. 

From the first page to the last the writer refers 
to Danes Court, near Deal, as the home of his 
brother, and he himself passes the intervals of his 
dissolute life in London in visits to his Kentish 
kinsman. Now Danes Court had been for cen- 
turies in the possession of the ancient family of 
Fogge, and I at once concluded that the writer 
of my diary was a younger member of the house. 
Indeed, encouraged therein by Hasted, the great 
authority on Kentish history, I went so far as to 
establish to my own entire satisfaction that the 
diarist was a certain Captain Christopher Fogge, 
R.N., who died in 1708, and was buried in 
Rochester Cathedral, and I was confirmed in this 
belief by the fact that the wind and weather of each 
day is carefully recorded as in a sailor's log-book. 
But somehow .it did not fit in. Constant reference 
is made to a brother Francis, and no amount of 
patient investigation in county genealogies and 
baptismal certificates could unearth any one named 
Francis Fogge. So I had to hark back and try 
another clue. Brother Francis was evidently a 
clergyman and a graduate of King's College, 
Cambridge, and towards the end of the diary 
the author visits him at the village of Prescot, near 
Liverpool. 

Sure enough the rich living of Prescot was in the 
gift of King's College, Cambridge, and further 
inquiry soon showed that a certain Francis Bere, 
M.A., was rector from 1700 until his death in 1722. 
This of itself was not much, but it led to further 
clues which proved the monumental Hasted (" His- 



348 THE JOURNAL OF 

tory of Kent ") to be hopelessly wrong about the 
Fogge pedigree and the ownership of Danes Court 
at the time, and the whole question was settled 
more completely than I could have hoped by the 
discovery, in the " Transactions of the Kent 
Archaeological Society for 1863," of a copy of the 
copious memoranda in the old family Bible, written 
by the stout cavalier, Richard Fogge, and his son 
John, with the notes attached thereto by Warren, 
the Kentish antiquary in 171 1, in which the family 
history is made clear. This was good as far as it 
went, and proved the surname and parentage of the 
author of the diary, but did not identify him per- 
sonally. Certain references in the manuscript, 
however, sent me searching amongst the Treasury 
Papers in the Record Office, and there I found a set 
of papers written in the same cramped, finnicking 
hand as the diary, which set my mind at rest, and 
proved beyond doubt or question who was the 
methodical rake that indiscreetly confided the secret 
of his "goings on" to the incomplete oblivion of 
the Spanish tongue. 

The writer of the diary was one Richard 
Bere, whose father was rector of Ickenham, near 
Uxbridge, and who was born at Cowley, near 
there, on the 28th of August, 1653. His sister 
Elizabeth had married in 1679 John Fogge, 
who subsequently succeeded to the Danes Court 
Estate, and, on the fly-leaf of the Fogge family 
Bible referred to, John Fogge, who was evidently 
proud of the connection, sets forth that his wife's 
grandfather had been " Receiver General of ye 
Low Countries ; her uncles, one of them was in a 
noble imploy in ye C Clarke's office, ye other being 



RICHARD BERE. 349 

one of ye clarkes of ye signet to King Charles 
II., a man acquainted with all Xtian languages. 
Ye other now alive is rector of Benclropp in 
Gloucestershire, who has an Estate. Her mother 
was one of ye family of Bland, of London, eminent 
merchants at Home and Abroad." Richard Bere 
was born only a year after his sister, so that the 
statement as to her relatives will hold good for him 
also. He had been Collector of Customs at Carlisle, 
but apparently had allowed his Jacobite leanings to 
be too evident, and had been dismissed from his 
office a short time before he began the diary, 
leaving his accounts at Carlisle still unbalanced and 
in arrear. How he learnt Spanish I do not know, 
but he had evidently been in Spain before his 
appointment to Carlisle, probably in the navy, or 
in some way connected with shipping, as, in addi- 
tion to the careful noting of the wind and weather 
all through the diary, he shows great interest in the 
naval events of his time. His uncle's remarkable 
proficiency in "all Xtian tongues" may also per- 
haps partly explain his own knowledge of the 
Spanish language. His family in old times had 
been a wealthy and powerful one, seated at 
Gravesend, Dartford, and Greenhithe in Kent, 
but had lost its county importance long before the 
date of the diary. The widow of one of his uncles, 
however, still lived at Gravesend at the time he 
wrote, and one of his father's sisters, who had 
married a man named Childs, also lived in the 
neighbourhood, and on her husband's death went 
to live with her niece at Danes Court. 

The diary commences on the 1st of January, 
1692-3, when Bere was living at Mr. Downe's in 



350 THE JOURNAL OF 

London, but the detailed entries begin on the 9th 
of the month, when he went by tilboat from 
Billingsgate to Gravesend. Here, after visiting 
his aunt Bere and his kinsman Childs at Northfleet, 
he slept at the inn, and started the next morning in 
a coach to Canterbury. The next day he continued 
his journey to Danes Court on a hired mare, and 
then after a few days' rest, "without seeing any- 
body," begins a round of visits and carouses with 
the neighbouring gentry. All the squires and their 
families for miles round march through the pages 
of the diary. Mr. Paramour, of Stratenborough ; 
Mr. Boys, of Betshanger, "my uncle Boys," who 
was probably Christopher Boys, of Updowne, uncle 
by marriage to John Fogge ; "my uncle Pewry," 
who was rector of Knowlton, but whose relationship 
with the diarist is not clearly discoverable ; Mr. 
Burville, rector of the Fogge Church of Tilmanston, 
and a host of other neighbours come and go, dine 
and drink, often staying the night, and in a day or 
two entertain John Fogge and his brother-in-law in 
return. The latter records the fact, but unfortu- 
nately does no more, and little is gathered of the 
manner of their lives at this period of the diary, 
except that they did a prodigious deal of visiting 
and dining at each others' houses. One of the most 
constant visitors to Danes Court is the aged Lady 
Monins, of Waldershare Park, the widow of the 
last baronet of the name, and Richard Bere appears 
to be as often her guest at Waldershare. The 
round of dining and visiting is broken in upon by 
a visit on horseback with brother John Fogge to 
the assizes at Maidstone, where the latter has a 
lawsuit which he loses, and Richard returns to 



RICHARD BERE. 351 

Danes Court alone, leaving his defeated brother 
at Canterbury. On the 12th of April the diarist 
records that he first saw the swallows, and on the 
20th, as instancing the uneventful life in this remote 
part of the country, it is considered worth while to 
register the fact that "whilst I was dia-o-ina- in the 
garden with Carlton a man passed on horseback." 
A few days afterwards neighbour Carlton's daughter 
is married, and then "my nephew Richard was first 
sent to school at Sandwich, Timothy Thomas being 
master." Richard, the heir of Danes Court, was 
about twelve years old at the time, and, as we shall 
see later on, turned out badly and completed the 
ruin of the fine old family, of which he was the last 
male representative in the direct line. Timothy 
Thomas, who was a distinguished scholar and M.A. 
of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, was head- 
master of the Sandwich Free School and brother 
to the rector of St. Paul and St. Mary, Sandwich. 
He seems to have been always ready for a carouse 
at the hostelry of the "Three Kings" at Sandwich 
or elsewhere with the father or uncle of his pupil. 

On the 28th of April " the fleet entered the 
Downs, the wind blowing a gale at the time. A 
ship called the Windsor was lost. I went to Deal 
to see the ships, and saw five ensigns." Small 
details of ablutions — rare enough they seen nowa- 
days — bed-warming, and quaint remedies for trifling 
ailments sound queerly enough to us coming faintly 
across the gloom of two centuries, but in the midst 
of the chronicles of this small beer of visits paid 
and received, of the stomach-ache, and so on, brother 
John receives a writ, and we feel that we are 
witnesses of the process by which all this feasting 



352 THE JOURNAL OF 

and revelry is completing the ruin of the ancient 
family that once owned broad lands and fat manors 
all over Kent, which founded hospitals and colleges, 
and was closely allied to the regal Plantagenets, but 
whose possessions had even now shrunken to one 
poor mansion house of Danes Court and the few 
farms around it. John Fogge's father, Richard, 
whose pompous Latin epitaph is still in Tilmanston 
Church, written by his eldest son, Edward, and 
scoffed at in the family Bible by the degenerate 
John, had been true to the King's side during the 
civil war. His near neighbour, Sir John Boys of 
Betshanger, had hunted and harried the cavalier 
and sacked his house after the mad Kentish rising 
in 1648, and had frightened his favourite child to 
death, and for the whole of the Commonwealth 
period poor Richard had been plundered and well- 
nigh ruined. His sons Edward and John had been 
captured at sea by the Dutch, and Christopher had 
been taken prisoner by the Turks, and all three 
had had to be bought off with ransom. Stout old 
Richard Fogge therefore had left Danes Court 
sadly embarrassed at his death in 1680. His eldest 
son, Edward, died soon after, and John Fogge, the 
brother-in-law of our diarist, was rapidly continuing 
the ruin at the date of the diary. By the 30th of 
May Richard Bere had had enough of Danes Court, 
and started to Canterbury " with my brother's horse 
and servant, and so to Northfleet, where I visited 
my kinsman Childs." He mounted his horse at 
five o'clock in the morning and arrived at North- 
fleet at five in the evening, staying on the way only 
a short time at Canterbury to rest and drink with 
friend Best, at whose house he always alights when 



RICHARD BERE. 353 

he passes through the ancient city. The distance 
by road is a good fifty-five miles, so Richard no 
doubt thought he had earned his night's rest at 
Uncle Childs' before starting, as he did next day, 
by tilboat to London. The first thing he did when 
he arrived was to "drink with Hia-o-s" and send 
for Benson to meet him at Phillips' mug-house. 
Benson appears to have been a humble friend or 
foster-brother, as Bere calls Benson's father "my 
father Benson," who went on all his errands, 
pawned his valuables, and faced his creditors. 
When Benson came they started out together and 
took a room, where they both slept, " at the sign 
of the ' Crown,' an inn in Holborne," and the record 
thereafter for some time consists mainly of such 
entries as " Dined with Sindry at the ' Crown,' and 
drank with him all the afternoon and evening at 
Phillips'. Slept at Mrs. Ward's ; " " Dined with 
Dr. Stockton, Haddock, and Simpson at the 
' Pindar of Wakefield ' ; " " Dined at the sign of 
the 'Castle,' a tavern in Wood Street, with many 
friends from the North ; drank there all the after- 
noon, and all night drinking with usual friends at 
Phillips'," only that these daily entries usually wind 
up with the record of a debauch which need not be 
described, but which Richard does not hesitate to 
set down in such cold blood as his orgie has left 
him. 

He appears to have had as a friend one West- 
macott, who was a prison official, and a standing 
amusement was apparently to go and see the 
prisoners, who sometimes fall foul of Westmacott 
and his friend and abuse them. Richard also has 
a quaint way of drawing a miniature gallows in 

24 



354 THE JOURNAL OF 

the margin of his manuscript on the days that he 
records the execution of malefactors. On the 15th 
of June, for instance, after giving his usual list of 
friends and taverns, -he writes : " Seven men hanged 
to-day ; fine and warm. Drinking at Phillips' at 
night ; Westmacott there again." A day or two 
afterwards the bailiffs walk in during his dinner at 
the tavern and hale his boon companion, Pearce, 
off to jail ; but Richard thinks little of it, for he 
goes off to drink straightway with Colonel Legge, 
and then passes a merry evening with Dr. Stockton 
and Mr. Rolfe at the sign of the " Ship," near 
Charing Cross. 

On the 29th of June "a new sword-belt, some 
woollen hose, and a rosette for my hat," were 
bought ; and soon after he leaves his lodgings at 
Mrs. Ward's, and thenceforward seems to sleep in 
taverns or inns for some time, very often winding 
up the entries in the diary by confessing that he 
was "drunk" or "very drunk." 

On the 1 8th of July, 1693, he visits "the house of 
the Princess of Denmark with Mr. Wooton," and 
thence goes to see a fashionable friend of his called 
Captain Orfeur, who had a fine house at Spring 
Gardens, where he meets his brother, and they all 
make a night of it at the "Ship." By the beginning 
of August it is not surprising that he is ill, and 
decides to visit his brother Francis in the country. 
On the 3rd he takes horse to Biggleswade and 
thence to Oundle, " where I met my brother and 
Mr. Rosewell " (he was a fellow of "King's," and 
apparently a great friend of Francis Bere's). 
" Dined at Caldwell's, and slept at the sign of the 
' Dog.' " 



RICHARD BERE. 355 

He stays at the " Dog " at Oundle for some days, 
still ill, and visits Northampton, where he is struck 
with the curious church, town - hall, prison, and 
courts of justice, and slept at the " George." From 
there he rides to the "Angel " at Wellingboro', and 
so home to London by Dunstable, where he stays 
at the "Saracen's Head," Watford, Rickmansworth, 
and Uxbridge, where he puts up at the " Swan." 
Being now well again, he recommences the old 
round of the " Horns," the " Red Cow," the 
" Mermaid," the "Crown," and so on, usually wind- 
ing up with a roaring carouse at Phillips', and 
occasionally relieved by trips to Islington-wells to 
walk in the fields with friend Stourton, who lives 
near there, and who later on becomes his in- 
separable companion. To illustrate the methodical 
character of this roistering blade, it is curious to 
note that, as he could not well carry his cumbrous 
diary with him on his journey to Oundle, he has 
made his daily entries on a small loose leaf and has 
afterwards carefully transcribed them in the book, 
the loose leaf, however, being also bound up with 
the rest. On the reverse side, in English, Richard 
has copied the following couplet of Lord Thomond's, 
which seems to have struck him : — 



" Whatever Traveller doth wicked ways intend, 
The Devill entertains him at his journey's end," 



and to this he adds several little remedies which 
some travelling companion seems to have told him 
on the road. He scrupulously records the fact that 
the day is his birthday on each succeeding 28th of 
August, and the occasion appears to be an excuse 



356 THE JOURNAL OF 

for a burst of deeper drinking than ever, but on this 
first birthday mentioned in the diary, 1693, he is 
evidently getting hard up. He lodges with a man 
named Nelson, who ceaselessly duns him for his 
rent, and we soon learn that the faithful Benson 
has pawned his two rings for eighteen shillings. 
On the 27th of September his friend Dr. Stockton 
tells him "that Mr. Addison told him that I lost 
my place because I was against the Government, 
and was foolish enough to talk about it, which," 
says indignant Richard, "is a lie." 

It sounds curious nowadays to read that he and 
his friends, Westmacott and others, sometimes walk 
out in the fields to shoot with bows and arrows, and 
usually return thence to the " Hole-in-the-Wall " to 
pass the evening. 

As a specimen of the entries at this period, I 
transcribe that for the 30th of September, 1693, at 
least so much of it as can well be published. 
" With Metham and Stourton to the City, and 
dined at the ' Ship ' in Birchin Lane. Vickers 
there, and we went together to the Exchange and 
met Mr. Howard ; with him to the ' Fountain,' Mr. 
Coxum there. At five o'clock went to Sir James 
Edwards', and drank there two flasks of wine. 
Then to the ' King's Head,' where I left them and 
went to Mr. Pearce's house and received ten pounds. 
Found Stourton very drunk. Went and paid Jack- 
son and Squires. Slept at Pearce's — drunk myself." 

With the ten pounds received from Mr. Pearce 
Richard seems to have set about renewing his 
wardrobe, and duly records the days upon which 
his various new garments are worn. On the 26th 
of October "Aspin, the tailor, brought my new 



RICHARD. BERE. 357 

white breeches in the morning, and we went out 
to drink at the ' Bull's Head' in Mart Lane." On 
the second of November he recites the names of 
six taverns at which he drank during the day, 
namely, the " Bull's Head," the " Red Cow," the 
" Ship," the " Horns," the "Cheshire Cheese/' and 
the "Crown," and on the 7th of the same month a 
dreadful thing happens to him. The constables 
walk off his dulcinea, Miss Nichols, to jail, and 
Richard is left to seek such consolation as he can 
find at the "Chequers," the "Three Cranes," and 
the " Sugar Loaf." The next day he seeks out his 
friend Westmacott at the " King's Head," and is 
taken to the prison to see the incarcerated fair one. 
Whilst there he "meets the man who has done the 
mischief." But he winds up at the " Sugar Loaf" 
in Whitefriars, and Phillips' mug-house, and is 
carried home thence in a coach too much over- 
come by his grief and potations to walk. On the 
14th, after several more visits to the prison, he 
bewails that he can do nothing for Nichols, and on 
visiting a Mrs. Hill, that kind matron tells him that 
his great friend, Dr. Stockton, had told her that " I 
had squandered all I had over a worthless wench, 
and thought now to live at the expense of my 
friends," but the entry, unfortunately, winds up with 
the words : " Borrowed two pounds of Simons on 
my watch." 

After this Richard thinks that quiet Danes 
Court might suit him for a time, and starts the 
next day, the 15th of November, as before to 
Gravesend by the tilboat, and, after a duty visit to 
his relatives, stays two nights at the sign of the 
" Flushing," and dines there merrily with "a clergy- 



358 THE JOURNAL OF 

man named Sell and another good fellow from the 
North." The same companions and others go with 
him in the coach to Canterbury, where he stays at 
the " Fleece," gets gloriously drunk, and is cheated 
out of half-a-crown, and lies in bed until mid-day 
next morning, his niece, Jane Fogge, who lived 
with the Bests at Canterbury, coming to visit him 
before he was up. In the afternoon he continues 
his road more soberly to Danes Court on a hired 
horse, and the old round of visiting and feasting 
begins afresh. On the first of December he meets 
Parson Burville, of Tilmanston, and drinks Canary 
wine till he is drunk. On the 12th Captain 
Christopher Fogge meets his brother John at a 
friend's house and they quarrel ; Uncle Childs dies, 
the cat is drowned in the well, three East Indiamen 
captains dine at Danes Court, Ruggles' wife is 
confined, and the daily small events of a remote 
village happen and are recorded much as they 
might happen to-day. Uncle Boys had a kinsman, 
presumably a brother, Captain Boys, R.N., who 
was Constable of Walmer Castle, where he lived, 
and Richard and his friends often go there to dine 
and visit the ships in the Downs. On the 26th of 
February, 1694, they all go to dinner on board the 
Cornwall, and "they gave us a salute of seven 
guns." They all went back to the castle to sleep, 
and John Fogge made a bargain with his weak- 
witted younger brother William about Danes Court, 
presumably with regard to his reversionary interest 
or charge upon the property. But whatever it was 
it did not matter much, for William Fogge died 
soon after. On the 25th of March, after going to 
Betsanger church and to the rectory to see Thomas 



RICHARD BERE. 359 

Boys, " Ruggles threw a poor boy out of the cart 
and seriously injured him," and on the next day a 
curt entry says : " The poor lad died at nine o'clock 
this morning, and was buried in the evening," but 
not a word about any enquiry or the punishment 
of the offending Ruggles. 

But after five months Richard sighs again for the 
taverns of Fleet Street, and on the 4th of April, 
1694, returns to London by the usual road by 
Canterbury and Gravesend, and again haunts the 
taverns and night-houses of the metropolis. He 
tries hard to borrow money from his friends, and is 
evidently getting anxious about his Customs accounts 
left in arrear at Carlisle. He is a pretty constant 
visitor to Whitehall about a certain petition of his, 
which petition, although he often mentions it in his 
diary, he of course does not describe or explain in a 
document written for his own eye alone. I have, 
however, been fortunate enough to find the actual 
document itself in the Treasury Papers at the 
Record Office, with all the voluminous reports and 
consultations founded upon it during the seven 
years it lingered in the Government offices. It 
appears that in August, 1689, the Earl of Shrews- 
bury, Secretary of State, had addressed a letter (the 
original of which is attached to Richard Bere's 
petition) to the Mayor or Collector of Customs of 
Carlisle, directing them to provide for the mainten- 
ance of certain "papist Irish soldier prisoners" who 
were to be kept in the castle there. The mayor 
refused to find the money, and Richard Bere, as 
Collector of Customs, had to do so, expecting to be 
reimbursed out of the Secret Service Fund, as 
provided by the Secretary of State. The prisoners 



360 THE JOURNAL OF 

were kept at Carlisle until December, 1690, and 
Richard spent £j/\. 4s. on their maintenance. He 
was soon after suddenly dismissed from his post, 
and was unable to balance his accounts for want of 
this money, and shortly before beginning the diary 
had presented his petition to the Lords of the 
Treasury for the reimbursement of the sum, or at 
least that it should be handed to the Receiver- 
General of Customs on his account. But whilst 
the petition was lying in the pigeon-holes in one 
office, another office was only conscious that 
Richard was behindhand in his accounts, and on 
the nth of May, 1694, there is an entry as follows 
in the diary : " Alone to dine at the ' Spotted Bull.' 
Then to Phillips', where one Petitt told me about 
the tolls of Carlisle, and said that the bailiffs from 
Appleby had a warrant to arrest me." Richard did 
not wait long for the bailiffs, and in less than a 
week had signed and sealed a bond, apparently for 
borrowed money to settle his toll accounts, bought 
a horse and a Bible, had gone to Westminster Hall 
"about his brother's affairs," and started off for 
Carlisle. He rode through Oundle, where the Rev. 
Francis Bere appeared still to be living, and so by 
Stamford, Grantham, Newark, Doncaster, Ferry- 
bridge, and Appleby to Carlisle. Two days before 
he arrived at the city some choice spirits came out 
to meet him, and a host of friends received him 
with open arms after his ten days' ride. He dines 
fourteen times with Dick Jackson, drinks often and 
deeply with the Mayor of Carlisle, collects money 
owing to him, buys a fine new periwig of Ned 
Haines, and a new sword, settles up his accounts 
of tolls, and begs a holiday for the schoolboys, 



RICHARD BERE. 361 

whom he treats all round, and winds up in a burst 
of jubilation by receiving a present of two kegs of 
brandy from his friend Bell, which had not paid 
much to the King probably, and of which, no doubt, 
the late Collector and his jovial companions gave a 
very good account. And then, after a six weeks' 
stay at Carlisle, he wends his way back to London 
again by the same road, his horse falling lame at 
Stamford, and the rider having to post from Gran- 
tham to Ware, and thence to London by coach. 
He alights at the " Bell," in Bishopsgate Street, 
where Benson soon seeks him with fresh clothes 
and a sedan chair, and takes him to his old quarter 
of London again. 

But poor Richard's prosperity is of short duration. 
The borrowed money soon comes to an end, with 
the able and constant assistance of a certain Catherine 
Wilson, who has now supplanted the vanished 
Nichols, and by the beginning of September, 1694, 
Benson is taking one article after the other to the 
pawnshop, and bringing back sums which Richard 
regards as very unsatisfactory in amount. On the 
6th of that month he attends what must have been 
rather a curious marriage at the church of St. 
George's, Bloomsbury, where one of Catherine 
Wilson's companions, named Early, was married 
" to a young man named James Carlile, between 
nine and ten in the morning." The whole of the 
party adjourn to the fields, and at one o'clock return 
to drink at the "Feathers" in Holborn, "but the 
knavish constables disturbed us and we went to 
Whitefriars ; at two I went to seek Benson, but he 
could only bring me 5s. on my pistols." With this 
sum Richard finds his way back to Whitefriars, where 



362 



THE JOURNAL OF 



he remained drinking till evening with the " newly- 
married pair, Catherine Wilson, a gentleman and 
his wife, and a marine." He then attends a coffee- 
house, and winds up with a carouse at the " Rising 
Sun." The unfortunate bridegroom soon disappears 
from the diary, but the " bride " takes part in the 
drinking bouts for some time to come. By the 
middle of October Richard has apparently come to 
the end of his tether, and, after borrowing a half- 
crown on his knives, quarrels with and separates for 
a time from Catherine Wilson ; but brother Francis 
and sister Fogge are appealed to for money, and 
when it arrives Catherine is to the fore again. A 
great scheme is hatched about this time with a 
Captain Sales and Mr. Butler, apparently relating 
to the tobacco duties, and the Commissioners of 
Customs and other officials are being constantly 
petitioned and visited. Sometimes the tobacco 
business is considered hopeful, and sometimes the 
contrary, but on the 7th of January, 1695, it looks 
very bright when the Lords of the Treasury and 
the Commissioners of Customs sitting together at 
Whitehall receive Richard and his two friends, who 
lay the case before them, but "Mr. Culliford spoke 
against us," and nothing was decided ; so the trio 
and others who joined them go to the "Rummer" 
tavern at Charing Cross, and drink confusion to 
Mr. Culliford. A day or two days after this "a 
knave came to betray me to the bailiffs," and poor 
Richard and his friend Sales seek the shady retreat 
of a tavern in Fulwood's Rents. For the next few 
days he dodges the bailiffs from tavern to tavern, 
and sleeps at Bell Court, Whitefriars, and else- 
where. The " knavish bailiffs even follow friend 



RICHARD BERE. 363 

Sales in the hope of tracking Richard. On the 
14th of January the faithful Benson brings his 
clothes to the new lodging in Whitefriars, and 
Richard ventures out " to the ' Anchor ' in Coleman 
Street, about the business of Andrew Lloyd and 
the widow. Then the ' St. John the Baptist's 
Head ' in Milk Street, where I found Butler meet- 
ing the citizens about the tobacco business." A 
few days after, the business of " Andrew Lloyd and 
the widow" is settled somehow at the " Mermaid" 
in Ram Alley, and on the 26th Benson pawns all 
Richard's silver for £5 7s., and Richard slips out of 
Whitefriars at night, sleeps at the " Star," and 
escapes to the quiet of Danes Court, where the 
bailiffs cease from troubling and the spendthrift is 
at rest. 

On the 2nd of February, 1695, scapegrace little 
nephew Dick Fogge comes home with a story that 
the small-pox had appeared at the school at Sand- 
wich, "but it is all a lie," and the youngster is led 
back ignominiously the next day by his father and 
Tim Thomas the schoolmaster, and when John 
Fo^cre returns to Danes Court he brings news that 
the French are capturing English boats in the 
Channel. Richard is still uneasy in his mind, for 
on the 15th of February he dreams that the bailiffs 
have caught him at last, and soon afterwards beg-ins 
seriously to put his Customs accounts in order. 
Then early in April he starts for London again, but 
as soon as he was on board the tilboat at Graves- 
end he caught sight of a bailiff ashore seeking him. 
It takes four hours to reach London, and the city is 
in a turmoil, for during the night " the mob knocked 
down a house in Holborn." He takes a room at 



364- THE JOURNAL OF 

the "Green Dragon" for a day or two, and the 
next night the mob burn down two houses in the 
Coal Yard, Drury Lane. A false friend named 
Fowler accompanies him in his search for lodgings, 
which he eventually takes at the house of a cheese- 
monger named Tilley in Fetter Lane, and also 
goes with him to the Custom House "about my 
accounts," and then on the 13th of April, after 
carousing with him half the day, " the hound 
betrayed me to the bailiffs," and poor Richard is 
caught at last. He is at once haled off to a spung- 
ing-house, called the " King's Head," in Wood 
Street, and the first thing the prisoner does is, of 
course, to send for Benson, who comes. with Sales 
and other friends, and they have a jovial dinner of 
veal with the keeper. The next day Benson brings 
some money, and Richard holds a perfect levee of 
friends. Some of them go off to soften the creditors, 
in which they fail, and other to apply for a writ of 
habeas corpus. A good deal of dining goes on at 
the spunging-house, but on the 16th the carouse is 
cut short by the removal of Richard to the Fleet. 
He has a good deal of liberty, however, for he still 
occasionally haunts the taverns in Fleet Street, 
probably within the "rules" of the prison or under 
the ward of a keeper. Brother Francis is appealed to 
daily by letter, and pending his reply all the old boon 
companions come in and out of the prison, dine there, 
drink there, and get drunk in the vaults, Benson and 
Catherine Wilson coming every day with clothes, 
books, and comfort. At the end of the month of 
May the parson brother, Francis, arrives, and after 
a month of negotiation at the Custom House and 
the law courts, and much drinking and dining as 



RICHARD BERE. 365 

usual, a bond is signed and sealed at the " Three 
Tuns " tavern, " Sales standing my friend," and 
Richard Bere is free again. 

But imprudent Richard, after a sharp fit of the 
gout, soon falls into his old habits again, and on 
the 6th of September confesses that he got into a 
row at the "Dog" Tavern in Drury Lane "about 
drinking the Prince of Wales' health," an indiscreet 
thing enough considering that his Custom House 
accounts were still unsettled, and his own petition 
to the Treasury unanswered. On the 1st of July, 
whilst he and his friend Sales are dinino- at the 
" Crown," the constables walk Sales off to prison, 
" and then go to the ' Globe ' Tavern and arrest his 
landlady, and Andrew Lloyd the author." And so 
the diary goes on ; his accounts still unpaid, but 
Richard full of the tobacco business, with petitions 
to the King and interviews with Treasury officials. 
Then there is some great Irish wool scheme, which 
necessitates much dancing attendance on the Duke 
of Ormond, but does not seem to result in much. 
His boon companions evidently do not think much 
of his chance of recovering anything from the 
Treasury, for "they made me promise B. Skynner 
a new wig if ever I received my £j/\. 4s. on the 
King's order." 

However much Richard may drink, he is frugal 
enough in his eating, for from this period to the end 
of the diary he constantly records that for days 
together he has eaten nothing- but a little bread and 
cheese, and the " one poor halfpennyworth of bread 
to all this intolerable amount of sack " is as applic- 
able to Richard Bere as it was to the fat knight. 
And he needs to be sparing in his expenditure, for 



366 THE JOURNAL OF 

he is poor enough just now, notwithstanding his 
drinkings with the Duke of Richmond's steward, 
with Stourton at the "Rose" in Pall Mall, and his 
visits to Lord James Howard in Oxenden Street, 
for he is reduced to pawning his new lace ruffles for 
six shillings, and Benson could borrow nothing on 
his new wig, for which he had just paid (or not 
paid) thirty-five shillings to Rolfe, the barber. But 
Benson pawns his linen for ten shillings and brother 
Francis sends funds, so after borrowing nine shillings 
and sixpence on " my Bezoar stone," and going to 
the Temple to receive "my pension" Richard starts 
on the i st of September, 1696, by hoy for Sand- 
wich. The voyage is long and tedious, the weather 
being bad, but after a day and a night at sea they 
drop anchor, and Richard solaces himself with punch 
and good fellowship at the " Three Kings " at 
Sandwich. 

On his arrival at Danes Court " John gives me a 
bad account of my nephew Richard, who went back 
to school to-day." But John certainly does not set 
his son a good example, for he soon breaks out 
himself, and on the 21st of October, "after dining 
with my aunt," threatens to cut his wife's throat. 
For months after this the diary constantly records 
that "John came home raving drunk"; "John 
from Sandwich to-day, very violent " ; " John 
mad drunk all day " ; "to Tilmaston Church 
twice, John there raving drunk," and so on. On 
Christmas Day, 1696, Richard, who as befits a 
parson's son, is all through an indefatigable church- 
goer, takes the Sacrament at Tilmanston Church, 
as he generally does on special days, John through 
all the Christmastide remaining drunk as usual. On 



RICHARD BERE. 367 

the 1 8th of January, 1697, he gives his wife a black 
eye, and the next day it is Richard's turn, and he 
goes on a great drinking bout with Captain Whiston, 
and "got drunk and lost my white mare," where- 
upon the immaculate "John is very angry with me." 
On the 10th of February nephew Richard runs 
away from school again, and gets soundly whipped 
by his father, who remains drunk all the month. 
On the 15th of March tidings comes to Danes 
Court that the master has been lodged in Dover 
jail, and his wife and her brother start off next 
morning to find him. He has escaped somehow, 
and gets back to Danes Court mad drunk just as 
his household are returning from afternoon service 
at Tilmanston Church. This goes on all March, 
and on the 26th John borrows money from an 
attorney named Lynch, and seals a bond at Danes 
Court conveying all his goods to the lender as 
security, "being rabid drunk at the time." A few 
days afterwards " the bailiffs nearly took John, but 
he escaped by the quickness of his mare." Echoes 
of more important events occasionally reach Danes 
Court. On the 6th of April, 1692, news comes that 
the French have taken Jamaica, and that they have 
captured a merchant fleet and convoys off Bilbao. 
Soon after we hear of " French pirates infesting the 
Downs, and they had taken two of our ships," but 
the domestic troubles of the old Kentish manor 
house occupy most of the diary at this period ; 
incorrigible young Richard runs away from school 
again and cannot be found for days ; with some 
difficulty drunken John's accounts with Hill and 
Dilnot, of Sandwich, are arranged, but on the 24th 
of April he is lodged in jail at Canterbury on 



368 THE JOURNAL OF 

another suit, and is only released by more borrow- 
ing from Lynch, and at once goes back to his 
drunken career again. An entry on the 29th of 
April, 1697, gives another inkling of Richard's 
Jacobite leanings. " Walking to Eythorne I met 
Petitt the parson and Captain March. We drank 
together and went to Walker's, where a Mr. Kelly 
defended the bad opinion that it was lawful for 
people to rise against the King if he violated his 
coronation oath." 

All through May John Fogge continued drunk, 
and one day falling foul of his brother-in-law, 
calls him a scurvy knave, and threatens to kick 
him out of his house. So Richard, having worn 
out his welcome at Danes Court, starts for town 
again, taking with him nephew Dick, who has 
just run away from school once more for the last 

time. 

He lodges henceforward at Stokes' in Short's 
Gardens, and pays ten shillings a month for his 
room. Every morning two or three taverns are 
visited with Stourton, Churchill, and others, where 
unfortunately they are sometimes imprudent enough 
to drink deep to the health of King James. 
Metheglin and mum are occasional drinks, but 
brandy the most usual, and black puddings seem 
a favourite dish for dinner. On the 1 9th of October, 
1697, peace is proclaimed with France, and on the 
1 6th of the following month the King enters the 
City in state, and on the 2nd of December the peace 
rejoicings were crowned by a great display of fire- 
works, and a banquet given by the Earl of Romney 
to the King. Richard's petition after five years' 
waiting is favourably reported upon by the Commis- 



RICHARD BERE. 369 

sioners of Customs, and during all the winter he 
haunts Whitehall and the ante-room of Lord 
Coningsby to get the recommendation carried out 
by the Treasury. But one obstacle after the other 
is raised, the papers are sent backwards and for- 
wards, and it is fully two years longer before 
Richard at last receives his money. On the 2nd 
of December, 1697, he records the consecration of 
St. Paul's, and on the 15th of February, 1698, he 
attends his first service in the Cathedral, "from 
thence to the Temple Church, and so to the 
' Trumpet,' where I supped on black puddings and 
cheese. Home at eight, when my landlady besought 
me to pay the rent." On the 18th of April he sees 
Prince George, and on the 16th of May visits the 
ship Providence from New England, and thence to 
the "Dolphin" tavern until three in the morning. 
On the 9th of June, apparently fired by the example 
of some of the wits he meets in the coffee-houses 
of Covent Garden, or in his favourite promenade at 
Gray's Inn Gardens, he records the fact that he 
wrote some satirical verses. The next day a fine 
new suit of clothes comes home, and he dons them 
with great pride. But alas ! a sad thing happens. 
Drinking at the "Sun" with his friends, some of 
the latter " threw some beer over my fine gar- 
ments," much to Richard's disgust. The quaint little 
gallowses on the margin are pretty frequent now, 
and the names of the wretches who are haneed are 
often given. On the 29th of June, 1698, Richard 
visits the Duke of Norfolk at St. James's House 
with his friends Stourton and Orfeur. " Thence to 
St. James's Park, to see a race between youths, 
where I met Churchill." 

25 



370 THE JOURNAL OF 

Richard becomes certainly more respectable as 
he gets older, and beyond a slight flirtation with 
his landlady, Mrs. Stokes, of Short's Gardens, we 
hear little of his gallantries henceforward. He is 
certainly more prosperous, too, in some mysterious 
way, owing to a voyage he makes, apparently in 
an official capacity, from Gosport to Flanders, for 
which a sum of ninety-five guineas is handed to 
him. He says nothing of his adventures in Flanders, 
where, however, he only lands at Ostend for a few 
days from his ship the Good Hope. The voyage, 
however, is evidently an important one for him, as 
he has spoken of it on and off for many months, 
and takes a special journey to Cambridge to see 
brother Francis before setting out. On the 19th 
of October, 1698, he anchors in Dover Roads on 
his return, and goes thence to Danes Court, where 
he stays over Christmas, and returns to London in 
January, 1699. His friend Churchill has now taken 
the Treasury matter in hand, and after many months 
of hope deferred Richard Bere gets his ^74 4s. at 
last in October. But Churchill wanted paying, and 
on the morrow of the payment " Churchill came to 
me drunk, and quarrelled with me because I would 
not give him the money he wanted." I suspect the 
money was all spent long ago, for Richard has often 
enough gone into the City to borrow five or ten 
pounds "on the King's order." He is very 
methodical about money matters, too, for all his 
apparent improvidence. He has a boon companion 
named Henry Johnson, who during the autumn 
and winter of 1699 drank mainly at his expense. 
Every penny thus spent is noted against the date 
in the diary, and a neat account of the whole, 



RICHARD BERE. 371 

headed " Expenditure on account of Henry John- 
son," is bound up with the diary. From this it 
appears that Johnson consumed over seven pounds' 
worth of brandy at various taverns with Richard in 
about five months. On the 27th of January, 1700, 
Richard again visits the Duke of Norfolk ; but it 
is rather a falling- off to be told that he goes straight 
from the Duke's to eat black puddings at Smith's. 
In July of the same year he goes to see a witch 
called i\nna Wilkes, a prisoner in the Marshalsea', 
and the same day he learns in the Tilt Yard that 
his boon companion Stourton is made Deputy- 
Governor of Windsor. On the 30th of July the 
young Duke of Gloucester dies, and one day next 
week Richard, after drinking punch with Mr. 
Van Dyk, tries to see the body of the young 
prince at the lying-in-state, but fails. His brother 
Francis is in town about the firstfruits and fees 
of his new fat living of Prescot, and Richard 
is his surety for ^48 is. 8d. to the King, and 
when Francis has got comfortably settled in his 
new rectory in July, 1701, Richard takes the ship 
Providence for Liverpool to visit him. They take 
a fortnight to get there ; and when he arrives 
a gentleman comes on board and announces 
that brother Francis has married his (the gentle- 
man's) sister, whereupon Richard is much surprised, 
and promptly borrows some money from his new 
connection. There are high jinks at Prescot, and 
Richard is in his element. He dines and carouses 
with everybody, from his brother's glebe-tenants to 
the Earl of Derby at Knowsley, gets drunk con- 
stantly, breaks his nose, loses his horse and money, 
quarrels in his cups with a good many of his friends, 



372 THE JOURNAL OF 

toasts King James III., and enjoys himself greatly. 
It is to be noted that his brother's curate generally 
shaved him during his stay. On the 13th of June 
1702, King William's death is recorded, and soon 
after the diarist returns to London by road, taking 
up his quarters at Stokes', Short's Gardens, again. 
In the autumn he goes to Danes Court, where John 
Fogge is still usually drunk ; and in October of 
that year a most important thing happens to Richard 
Bere. On the 23rd of that month he visits the aged 
Lady Monins at Waldershare, the next mansion to 
Danes Court. His sister, Mrs. Fogo-e, is with him : 
and staying with Lady Monins is a certain Lucy 
Boys, presumably a daughter of Captain Boys, the 
Constable of Walmer Castle. After dinner Richard, 
who was then forty-nine years of age, whispered 
soft words of love to this young lady, and the next 
day he records the fact that he sent her a tender 
love letter. The maiden, nothing loath, sends him 
an answer next day, and a few days afterwards 
comes herself to visit Mrs. Fogge at Danes Court. 
Of course Richard improves the occasion, and, as 
he says, "makes love again. For the next week a 
lively interchange of notes takes place between 
Danes Court and Waldershare ; and on the 8th of 
November Lucy Boys thinks it time to go home to 
Walmer Castle. It is not quite in the direct road, 
but she called to say good-bye to Mrs. Fogge at 
Danes Court, and, of course, Mr. Richard Bere 
thought well to go in the coach with her to Walmer. 
"We pledged," he says, " to marry each other, and 
solemnly promised to marry no one else." On the 
1 6th of December he again goes to Waldershare, 
and they again renew their pledge, and Lady Monins 



RICHARD BERE. 373 

promised all her influence with her grandson-in-law, 
the great Earl Poulet, to forward Richard's fortunes. 
Early in January, 1703, Richard speeds to London 
with a letter from Lucy Boys to Lord Poulet in his 
pocket. The peer welcomes him warmly, promises 
him great things at the Treasury and elsewhere, 
and loving letters still speed backward and forward 
between London and Walmer. Richard is constant 
at Lord Poulet's levees, and at last, on the 25th of 
March, 1703, Richard is introduced to the all-power- 
ful Lord Godolphin, who promises him a good office, 
upon strength of which he "borrows another ^"5 
of Gawler." 

But Richard complains of lameness on the 
very day that he saw Godolphin, and the next 
entry in the diary is carefully traced with a 
trembling hand at the bottom of the page nearly 
three months afterwards. Richard had fallen ill of 
gout, fever, and rheumatism, and had not left the 
room for ten weeks, ''attended by Mr. Sheppery of 
Drury Lane, my surgeon Mr. Williams, and my 
housekeeper Mrs. Cockman." In July he was well 
enough to go to Danes Court, and on the nth of 
August visited Waldershare with his sister. There, 
walking in the grotto, he again pledged his troth 
to Lucy Boys. On the 2nd of September Lucy 
Boys came to dine at Danes Court, and the vows 
were repeated. On this occasion Miss Boys 
showed her sincerity by handing to Richard "95 
guineas, one pistole, and six shillings in silver," pre- 
sumably for investment or expenditure on fitting up 
a home. Soon afterwards Lord Poulet came and 
took his wife's grandmother away on a visit to 
Hinton, where she died in six weeks. Richard 



374 THE JOURNAL OF 

Bere returns to London a happy man, but in a few 
weeks his lady love herself comes on a visit to 
Lord Poulet, and then, on the 20th of November, 
a great change comes over the tone of the entries. 
" The strumpet Boys came to London. I saw her 
at Lord Poulet's and gave her five guineas, besides 
five guineas I gave her on the 26th to go to the 
Exchange, five guineas more I paid on her account 
at Mr. Stow's, and another ten pounds on account 
of the slut." Another entry on the 30th is still 
more disheartening. " I went to see the slut Boys 
at Lord Poulet's, and the baggage denied ever 
having promised to marry me at all, and now she 
has gone and married a stuttering parson called 
Woodward." Then Lord Poulet said he had never 
promised to do anything for him, and "treated me 
vilely," and the whole romance was ended. 

At this time there are two entries in English as 
follows: "November 27, 1703. From 12 o'clock 
in ye morning till 7 was ye most violent storm of 
wind y* ever was known in England, and ye damage 
done at land and sea not to be estimated." 

"On ye 15th, 16th, and 17th of January, 1703-4, 
was a very violent storm, which forced back ye fleet 
bound to Lisbon w th ye Archduke Charles, under 
Rooke, separating them, and did a great deale of 
damage." 

In March, 1704, Richard is evidently making 
great preparations for another sea voyage. He 
often visits Bear Quay, and is much in the City. 
Trunks and new clothes seem to be brought now 
without much difficulty, and Benson's services are 
not apparently so needful for raising the wind. 
Richard's friend, old Mrs. Feltham, who keeps a 



RICHARD BERE. 375 

shop in the Exchange, invites him to come and 
see her and drink mum, in order to ask him about 
making her son purser. Richard seems also to 
have quite a friendly correspondence with the 
" stuttering parson Woodward," and one is tempted 
to believe that Lord Poulet may after all have done 
something for the jilted lover. Richard's circum- 
stances must be a good deal changed, for he can 
afford to leave twenty guineas with T. Bell to keep 
for him when he departs for Danes Court, after a 
merry dinner at the " Blue Posts " in the Haymarket 
(which he quaintly translates as " los Postes ceruleos 
en la Feria de feno) with Churchill and others. On 
the 23rd of March, 1704, he starts for Danes Court, 
and there the usual life of visiting and feasting is 
recommenced. On the nth of April, 1704, there 
is an entry to the effect that he went to visit Lady 
Barret, and wrote to Mr. Woodward, and then the 
curtain drops and all is darkness, which swallows up 
Richard Bere and all his friends for ever. Where 
he went and what became of him I have been 
unable to discover, and the transient gleam thrown 
across his trivial history by his own folly, in writing- 
down his most secret actions in a language known 
to many, will in all probability be the only light ever 
thrown upon his life. John Fogge died soon after, 
but his widow, Richard Bere's sister, lived at Danes 
Court in straitened circumstances for many years 
after. Warren, the antiquary, writing in 171 1 
(Fausett MS. Kent Archaeological Society), de- 
plores that the once fine estate was reduced even 
then to about fifty pounds a year only, and says that 
it was uncertain whether any male heir was living — 
thus soon had scapegrace nephew Dick drifted away 



376 THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE. 



from his friends. Warren says that he had been 
last heard of at Lisbon some years before, but on 
his mother's death he turned up a common sailor, 
sold Danes Court to the Harveys in 1724, married 
a certain Elizabeth Rickasie, a sister of St. Bartholo- 
mew's Hospital at Sandwich, and died on board the 
fleet at Gibraltar in 1740, leaving, says Hasted, an 
only daughter, married to a poor shepherd named 
Cock, and living in a lowly hovel near the manor 
house of which her ancestors had for centuries been 
masters. 










INDEX. 



A. 

Acevedo, Diego de, 149, 155. 
Adanero, Count de, 295. 
Addison, Mr., 346, 356. 
Adelphi, the, 264, 288. 
Aguilar, Marquis de, 140, 155. 
Alarcon, Captain, 46, 55, 59. 
Alba, Duchess of, her reception by 

Queen Mary, 163-4, J 67, I 7°- 
Alba, Duke of, in Portugal, 13. 
Alba, Duke of, 76 ; sent to crush 

the Netherlands, 93 ; his seizure 

of Egmont, 94 ; his failure, 98 ; 

renewed seventy, 99-104 ; his 

praise of Romero, 106 ; retires 

from the Netherlands, 106-7. 
Alba, Duke of, 140, 149, 153, 155. 
Alba, Duke of, urges Philip II. to 

action against England, 183. 
Alberoni, Cardinal, 255. 
Albert, Archduke, in command 

at Lisbon, 42, 48, 50-1, 53, 56, 

6 3 , 67. 
Alburquerque, 3rd Duke of, with 

Henry VIII. before Boulogne, 

80. 
Alburquerque, 4th Duke of, 93. 
Alburquerque, Matias de, com- 
mands the galleys in the Tagus, 

50. 
Alencastro, Luis, Don, Grand 

Master of the Order of Christ, 46. 
Aljubarrota, Portuguese victory 

over Castile, 218. 
Allen, Father, 191, 193, 197, 198, 

201. 
Alonso the Wise of Castile, his 



decree against extravagance in 
attire and food, 212-13. 

Alonso XI. of Castile, decrees 
against extravagance, 213. 

Altamira, Count de, raises an army 
to relieve Corunna, 38. 

Alvaro, Souza, Portuguese captain, 
65-6. 

Alvelade, near Lisbon, 56-7. 

Andrada, Count de, attempts to 
relieve Corunna, 37, 39. 

Antonio, Dom, the Portuguese 
Pretender, 13 ; flies to England, 
14 ; his treatment by Elizabeth, 
14 ; flies to France, 15-16 ; 
attacks the Azores, 16 ; again 
appeals to Elizabeth, 17 ; his 
concessions to Elizabeth, 18-23 > 
accompanies the expedition, 
29 ; lands at Peniche, 43-5 ; 
arrives at Torres Vedras, 55 ; 
at the gates of Lisbon, 56-9, 64, 

67 ; leaves with the English, 64, 

68 ; returns to England, 71-2. 
Antwerp, sack of, in the Spanish 

Fury, 117-20. 
Araujo, Captain, surrenders 

Peniche, 42. 
Argiielles, Father, an exorciser, 

303 ; his communications with 

the devil, 304, passim. 
Armada, defeat of, 3-5 ; cause of 

its defeat, 3-4 ; the disaster to 

foretold by Mendoza, 200. 
Arundel, Earl of, 149, 153, 154, 

155, 162. 
Arundel, Earl of, at Durham Place, 

269. 



378 



INDEX. 



Arundell's rising suppressed by the 
aid of Spanish mercenaries, 77. 

Astorga, Philip II. at, 142. 

Austria, decline of the house of, in 
Spain, 340-1. 

Authorities with regard to the 
wedding of Philip and Mary, 

I2 5-7> I3 1 " 6 - 

Azores, attacks upon, in the 

interest of Dom Antonio, 14- 

16 ; to be attacked by the 

English expedition, 22, 71 ; 
plan abandoned, 71, 72. 

B. 

Bacon, Lady, 284. 

Baden, Margrave of, imprisoned 

for debt at Rochester, 284. 
Baoardo, the Venetian, his account 

of the marriage of Philip and 

Mary, 126-7. 
Barlemont, Count, to betray 

Brussels, 115. 
Basing House, Philip and Mary at, 

166. 
Bazan, Alvaro de, 66. 
Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, 

his plans against Elizabeth, 184 

passim. 
Beauvoir, de, 108. 
Bedford's, Earl of, visit to Spain 

to ratify the marriage contract, 

128, 137, 142-3 ; Philip's gift 

to, 143-4 > chooses the ship to 

carry Philip to England, 145 ; in 

England, 153. 
Bedford, Earl of, his house in the 

Strand, 264. 
Benavente, Philip II. at, 141-2. 
Benavente, Count de, entertains 

Philip II., 141. 
Benavente, Count de, Chamberlain 

to Charles II., 297, 300. 
Bere, Francis, Rev., rector of 

Prescot, 347, 360, 371. 
Bere, Richard, his parentage, 348 ; 

his adventures, 348 fiassim. 
Bergues, Marquis of, 149. 
Berlips, Madame, 295. 
Bertondona, Martin de, Spanish 

naval commander, 145. 
Bossu, Count, 102, 105. 
Boulogne besieged by the English, 

79-81. 



Boys, Captain, R.N., Constable of 

Warmer Castle, 358. 
Boys, Christopher, of Updowne, 

35o. 
Boys, Mr., of Betshanger, 350. 
Boys, Lucy, her love passages with 

Richard Bere, 372-5. 
Boys, Sir John, of Betshanger, 352. 
Braganza, Duke of, 68. 
Brazil, offered to Catharine de 

Medici in return for aid to Dom 

Antonio, 18. 
Brett, Colonel, at Corunna, 33 ; 

killed at Lisbon, 60. 
Britain's Burse, Strand, 287. 
Browne, Sir Anthony, master of 

the horse to King Philip, 151. 
Bruce, Robert, envoy of the 

Scottish Catholics to Philip II., 

199-202. 
Butler, Sir Philip, a friend of 

Essex, 41. 
Burleigh, Lord, his house in the 

Strand, 264. 
Burville, Mr.,rector of Tilmanston, 

35o,358- 

C. 

Cadiz, Drake's attack upon, 8. 
Calais, the Armada in, 3. 
Calderon, 253. 
Caraffa, Cardinal, 197. 
Cardenas, surrenders Cascaes to 

Drake, 62 ; beheaded by the 

Spaniards, 63. 
Carew, at Durham Place, 265. 
Carillo, 155. 

Carlisle House, Strand, 264, 286. 
Carlos, Don (son of Philip II.), 

137, H 1 - 
Carr, Captain, killed at Lisbon, 

60. 
Carsey, Captain, killed at Lisbon, 

60. 
Cary, Robert, sent by Elizabeth to 

warn James of the Catholic plot, 

202. 
Cascaes at the mouth of the Tagus, 

Drake at, 62-3, 64, 66, 68. 
Castile, Admiral of, Prime Minister 

of Spain, 295-8. 
Castro, Fernando de, 56. 
Catharine de Medici, aids Dom 

Antonio, 16, 18. 



INDEX. 



379 



Catharine of Lancaster, bride of 
the Prince of Castile, 218. 

Cave, Sir Ambrose, gives a wed- 
ding feast at Durham Place, 
282-3. 

Cecil, Robert, first Earl of Salis- 
bury, his house in the Strand, 
264 ; obtains Strand frontage of 
Durham Place, 267, 286-7. 

Cecilia of Sweden, Margravine of 
Baden, at Durham Place, 
283-4. 

Cerralba, Marquis of, defends 
Corunna, 31. 

Cervantes' burial-place, 75-6. 

Challoner, Sir Thomas, English 
ambassador in Spain, 274. 

Chambergo hat, 254. 

Chapin-Vitelli, at Mons, 99. 

Charles V., Emperor, his decrees 
against extravagance in dress, 
223-4. 

Charles II. of Spain (the Be- 
witched), his appearance, 291, 
296 ; his distress, 297 ; the exor- 
cism, 303 passim ; death, 319. 

Charles II. of Spain, his sumptuary 
decrees, 255. 

Charles III. of Spain, his sumptu- 
ary decrees, 257-9. 

Charles IV. of Spain, his sumptu- 
ary decrees, 259-60. 

Charles Stuart's visit to Madrid, 
249-50. 

Chartres, Vidame de, 276. 

Chatiilon, French ambassador, at 
Durham Place, 268. 

Chinchon, Count de, 155. 

Churchill (1697), 368-9, 370. 

Coaches, abuse in the use of, 
231-2, 242-3, 244, 256. 

Cobham, Lord, 153, 284. 

Cobham, Lady, 284-5. 

Como, Cardinal, 197. 

Copetes (topknots), decree against, 

253- 

Cordoba, Don Antonio de, mobbed 
in London, 170. 

Cordoba, Cardinal, Inquisitor- 
General (Charles II.), 316 ; 
poisoned, 316. 

Cordoba, Pedro de, Chamberlain 
of Philip II., 149 ; mobbed in 
London, 170. 



Corunna, English attack upon, 

3i-40,45- 
Corunna, Philip II. at, 144 ; the 

Spanish fleet at, 145-6 ; Philip 

II., departure from, to marry 

Mary, 147. 
Cotes, Sebastian de, a conspirator 

against the Queen Marie Anne 

of Neuberg, 298. 
Coventry, Lord Keeper, at Dur- 
ham Place, 287. 
Clanking farthingales, 251, 252. 
Clarencis, Mistress Susan, 273. 
Clinton, Lord, 153. 
Cloth manufactory in Spain, 218, 

224, 227. 
Creighton the Jesuit, his action in 

the plot against England, 188, 

189, 201. 
Crisp, Provost-Marshal, 51. 
Cromwell, Richard, at Durham 

Place, 265. 



D. 



Danes Court, Tilmanston, Kent, 

347 passim. 
Darcy, Lord, 153. 
D'Aubigny, Duke of Lennox, joins 

in the plot against England, 

185, 188, 190. 
Derby, Earl of, 149, 153, 160, 164. 
Derb)', Earl of (1700), 371. 
D'Este, Cardinal, 197. 
Devereux, Walter (Essex's brother), 

4 1 - 

Diaz, Cristobal, a Spanish captain 
in the English service, 85, 90. 

Diaz, Froilan, the new confessor 
of Charles II., 299 ; his partici- 
pation in the exorcism, 303 
passim ; confesses, 316 ; arrested 
and escapes, 317 ; re-captured 
and imprisoned by the In- 
quisitor-General, 318-19 ; re- 
leased and made Bishop of 
Avila, 320. 

Diaz de Lobo, Ruy, beheaded in 
Lisbon, 57. 

Dormer, Jane, Countess of Feria, 
158 ; at Durham Place, 268, 

273- 
Drake, Sir Francis, commands the 
expedition against Portugal, 9, 



3 8o 



INDEX. 



23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 35, 

39-43, 45-6, 62-3, 64, 66, 69, 71. 
Dryden, John, 346. 
Dudley, Earl of Warwick and 

Duke of Northumberland, 82, 

91, 265-6. 
Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, 

at Durham Place, 269. 
Dumblain, Bishop of, 201. 
Durham Place, description of, in 

Tudor times, 270-2. 



E. 



Ecclesiastical palaces in the Strand, 
264. 

Egmont's visit to Madrid, 93 ; his 
arrest and execution, 94-5. 

Egmont, Count, at Durham Place, 
268. 

Egmont's visit to London to ratify 
Philip and Mary's marriage con- 
tract, 137, 139 ; with Philip, 140, 

149, !55- 
Elder, John, his account of Philip 

and Mary's entrance into Lon- 
don, 125. 
Elizabeth's attitude towards Spain, 

179-80. 
Elizabeth of Valois, Queen of 

Spain, 228, 231. 
Englefield, Sir Francis, English 

adviser of Philip II., 190. 
English Catholic feeling against 

the Scots, 190-1, 195-6, 1-98. 
English Catholics favour a purely 

Spanish attack on England, 192, 

193- 
English aggression against Spain, 

8, 182-3. 
English fashions, Spanish opinion 

of, 157-8, 165-7, I7i- 
English feeling after the Armada, 

7-8- 
English feeling against Philip's 
marriage with Mary, 137, 169- 

74- 
English food, abundance of, 167. 
English ladies, Spanish opinion of, 

157-8, 166. 
Enriquez, Pedro, his account of 

the marriage of Philip and 

Mary, 134-5 passim. 



Essex, Earl of (Walter Devereux), 
at Durham Place, 286. 

Essex, Robert, Earl of, flight from 
Court to join the Portuguese 
expedition, 27 ; embarks on the 
Swiftsure and escapes, 28-9 ; the 
Queen's rage thereat, 28, 35 ; 
joins the expedition at sea, 41 ; 
lands at Peniche, 43 ; leads the 
vanguard, 51-2 ; at Lisbon, 56, 
60, 64 ; his humanity, 66 ; sends 
a challenge to the Spaniards, 
67-8. 

Ethrington, Captain, at Puente de 
Burgos, 38. 

Expedition against Portugal : 
authorities hitherto known re- 
specting it, 10 ; new authorities 
now quoted, 10, 11, 12 ; its con- 
stitution as a joint-stock enter- 
prise, 9, 18, 22-8 ; its strength, 
24-6 ; difficulties, 24-8 ; finally 
sails, 29 ; attacks Corunna, 31- 
40 ; alarm in Spain, 30-3, 39-40 ; 
the sacking of Corunna, 33-5 ; 
arrival at Peniche, 43-7, 51 ; 
attack on Lisbon, 60-0 ; with- 
drawal, 63-8 ; sails from Cas- 
caes, 70 ; return to England, 71 ; 
reasons for its failure, 72. 



Fadrique de Toledo, 98, 100, 101, 

103-4. 
Fashion in hair-dressing, 250, 

253-4- 

Fashion of dress in Spain in time 
of Philip II., 230-4 ; in the 
time of Philip III., 238-9 ; in 
the time of Philip IV., 247-54. 

Female extravagance in dress, 
Philip IV.'s fulmination against, 

25I-3- 

Fenner, Captain, with the English 
at Corunna, 32. 

Ferdinand and Isabel, their de- 
crees against gold and silver 
tissues, 220 ; limiting the use of 
silk, 221. 

Fernando de Toledo, prior, com- 
mands the Spanish army to 
relieve Lisbon, 30, 39, 61. 

Fernihurst (Gray, Laird of), 185. 






INDEX. 



38i 



Feria, Count de, 140, 149, 155 ; 

marries Jane Dormer, 158 ; 

urges Philip to attack England, 

180 ; at Durham Place, 267-8, 

269, 272, 273. 
Feria, Countess de. See Dormer. 
Figueroa, Spanish special envoy, 

149. 
Finch, Lord Keeper, at Durham 

Place, 287. 
Fitzwalter, Lord, accompanies 

Bedford to Spain, 137, 142, 143 ; 

in England, 153. 
Fogge family of Danes Court, 

347 passim. 
Fogge, Captain Christopher, 347. 
Fogge, Edward, 352. 
Fogge, John, of Danes Court, 

348, 352, 366-7, 368, 372, 375. 
Fogge, Richard, Cavalier, 348, 

35 2 - 

Fogge, Richard, heir of Danes 
Court, 351, 363, 366, 367, 375-6. 

Folch de Cardona, Antonio, a 
member of the Queen's party, 
301, 313, 316, 318. 

Folch de Cardona, Lorenzo, Mem- 
ber of the Council of the In- 
quisition, 301, 313, 318-19. 

Fouldrey, Dalton-in-Furness, pro- 
posed place of landing for the 
Spanish invasion, 192. 

Francisco Fernando, the illegiti- 
mate son of Philip IV., 328-41. 

French ambassador de Foix at 
Durham Place, 282. 

French fashions, revolt against, in 
Spain, 255. 

Froucle's account of the marriage 
of Philip and Mary, 126, 130, 
131 passim. 

Fuentes, Count de, commands the 
Spaniards in Lisbon, 55-6, 65, 
67, 72. 

Fulford, Captain, at Puente de 
Burgos, 38. 

G. 

Gafas (horn spectacles), 254. 

Gage, Sir John, 154. 

Gamboa, Sir Peter, a Spanish 
captain, murdered in London, 
77 ; enters the English service, 



82-3 ; 1 pensioned by Henry 
VIII., 86 ; his treachery to 
Romero, 88-9; his brilliant 
charge at Pinkie, 90. 

Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 
155. 161, 174. 

Garter, the investure of Philip 
with, 149, 150. 

Genlis' troops massacred at Mons, 
99. 

Germaine de Foix, Queen of 
Aragon, 221. 

Gilimonas, the, leaders of the 
ladies' revolt against the sump- 
tuary decrees, 252-3. 

Glimes, de, Flemish captain in the 
Spanish service, killed, 109. 

Godolphin, Lord, 373. 

Golilla, invention of the, 248, 249, 
255, 260. 

Gomez, Ruy, Philip II.'s favourite, 
146, 149. 

Gonsalves de Ateide, commands 
the Spaniards at Peniche, 42-3. 

Gonzaga, Cardinal, 197. 

Goodwin, Captain, wounded at 
Corunna, 35. 

Granada, Archbishop of, protests 
against Olivares leading Philip 
IV. into dissipation, 326-7. 

Granvelle, Cardinal de, his attitude 
towards the plot against Eng- 
land, 187, 189. 

Grey, Lady Jane, married at 
Durham Place, 265. 

Grey, Lord, in command at 
Boulogne, 81. 

Guaras, Antonio de, 77, 88. 

Guarda-Infante (flattened farthin- 
gales), decrees against, 251-3. 

Guedejas (side locks), 250 ; decrees 
against, 253-4. 

Guevara, Captain, hanged for 
murder at Smithfield, 77. 

Guise, Duke of, his plans against 
England, 184 passim. 

Gutierre, Lope de Padilla, sent to 
receive the English envoys, 139, 
149. 

Guzman, Captain, at Torres 
Vedras, 47, 51, 55, 70. 

Guzman, Diego de, Spanish am- 
bassador in England, 182 ; at 
Durham House, 282, 285. 



382 



INDEX. 



H. 

Haarlem, siege of, 102-4. 
Haddington, siege of, 90. 
Hamilton, Lord Claude, appeals to 

Philip II., 199. 
Haro, Juan de, a Spanish captain 

in the English service, 78, 82. 
Hawkins, John, at Durham Place, 

269. 
Heneage, Sir Thomas, 285. 
Henry, King-Cardinal of Portugal, 

12, 13. 
Henry IV. of Castile, 219. 
Henry VIII. attacks Boulogne, 

79-81 ; his death, 90. 
Hinder, Captain, at Puente de 

Burgos, 38. 
Holt, Father, the Jesuit, his action 

in the plot against England, 

186. 
Horn, Count, with Philip II. in 

England, 149, 155 ; his arrest 

and execution, 94-5. 
Hostages, French, in England, 

276. 
Household of an ambassador at 

Durham Place, 274. 
Howard, Lord Admiral, with Philip 

and Mary, 155 ; proposes an ex- 
pedition to Portugal, 9. 
Howard, Lord James (1696), 366. 
Hugo's, Victor, distortion of his- 
tory, 294. 
Huntingdon, Earl of, sent by the 

Queen to seek Essex, 28. 
Huntly, Colonel, at Corunna, 

33-4- 
Huntly, Earl of, appeals to Philip 

II., 199. 
Hunsdon, Lord, 284. 

I. 

Infantado, Duke of, 249. 

Ireland, the Armada on the coast 

of, 5- 
Isassi Ydiaquez, Juan de, takes 

charge of the child of Philip 

IV. (Francisco Fernando), 328 

passim. 
Ivy Lane, Strand, 263, 286. 

J- 
Jaime I. of Aragon, his enact- 
ment against extravagance, 211. 



James VI. of Scotland, plan to 
carry him to Spain, 185 ; his 
duplicity, 186; his religion, 186, 

!9 2 . IQ 3-5, J 97. 201. 
Jara, near Lisbon, 55. 
Jewels brought to England by 

Dom Antonio, 14-17. 
John I. of Castile, his sumptuary 

decrees, 218. 
John II. of Castile, 219. 
Juana la Loca, Queen, 141 ; her 

sumptuary decree, 222. 
Juan, Don, of Austria, 114, 120; 

seizes Namur, 120. 
Juan Jose, Don, of Austria, 254, 

292, 307, 340. 
Juan of Portugal, Philip's brother- 
in-law, death of, 138. 
Julian, Captain. See Romero. 

K. 

Katharine of Aragon at Durham 

Place, 266. 
Kett's rising, suppressed by the 

aid of Spanish mercenaries, 77. 
Kildare, Earl of, 164. 
Kingston, at Durham Place, 265. 
Knollys, Francis, sent by the 

Queen to seek for Essex, 27. 

L. 

Lane, Colonel, at Lisbon, 60. 

Leganes, Marquis de, a conspirator 
against the Queen Marie Anne 
of Neuberg, 298. 

Leicester, Earl of, and Dom An- 
tonio's jewels, 14. See also Dud- 
ley, Robert. 

Lethington (William Maitland, 
Laird of), at Durham Place, 269. 

Linen, manufacture of, in Spain, 
227. 

Lisbon, English attack on, 45-6 ; 
Spanish force fall back, 47 ; 
terror in the city, 47-50, 54-5 ; 
attempts to betray the city, 57- 
8 ; night attack on the English, 
60-61 ; withdrawal of the 
English, 63-66 ; distrust of the 
Spaniards, 65. 

Lloyd, Andrew, " the author," 363, 

365- 
Lope de Vega, 253. 



INDEX. 



>°3 



Lopez, Dr. Ruy, 15, 17. 
Louvres, near Lisbon, 55. 
Lumay, Count de la Mark, 103. 
Lumley, Lord, at Durham Place, 
269. 

M. 

Madrid in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, 231-44, 

24 2 -3> 251-5- 

Maineville, de, sent by Guise to 
Scotland, 190-1. 

Margaret of Parma, 93. 

Mariana, Queen Regent of Spain, 
254, 292, 307. 

Marie Anne of Neuberg, Queen 
of Spain, 292, 295, 300, 301 ; 
discovers the exorcism, 313-16. 

Marie Louise of Orleans, Queen of 
Spain, 292. 

Marriage of Philip and Mary, feeling 
against it in England, 137, 167- 
74 ; hard conditions imposed by 
the English, 138 ; great prepara- 
tions in Spain, 140-1 ; voyage of 
Philip, 147-53 ; his first inter- 
view with Mary, 154-7 > the 
ceremony at Winchester, 160 ; 
the banquet, 161-3 ; after the 
marriage, 164-74. 

Mary, Queen, her first present to 
Philip, 139 ; at Winchester, 
152 ; her presents to Philip, 152- 
3 ; her first interview with 
Philip, 154-7 ; her appearance, 
156-7 ; her splendour at the 
marriage ceremony, 160 ; at the 
banquet, 161-3 ; her reception 
of the Duchess of Alba, 164. 

Mary Stuart, proposal to marry 
her to Don Carlos, 181 ; her 
adhesion to Spain, 184-5, 188-9, 
196, 198. 

Mason, Sir John, 91. 

Massino, Captain, attempt to 
murder him in the Strand, 276, 
277. 

Master of Santiago, Regent of 
Castile, his denunciation of 
extravagance in attire, 220. 

Matilla, confessor to Charles II. of 
Spain, 295 ; his fall and death, 
300-1. 



Matthew, Toby, Bishop of Dur- 
ham, at Durham Place, 267. 

Medici, Cardinal de, 197. 

Medici, Pietro de, ordered to raise 
mercenaries for the Spanish 
service, 39. 

Medina Celi, Duke of, 140, 155 ; 
sent to replace Alba in the 
Netherlands, 98. 

Medina Sidonia, Duke of, his re- 
turn to Spain from the Armada, 5. 

Medkirk, Colonel, at Lisbon, 60. 

Melino, Guise's envoy to the Pope, 
192, 196. 

Mendovi, Cardinal, 201. 

Mendoza, Bishop of Segovia, 
Inquisitor-General (Charles II.), 
317 ; contest with the Inquisi- 
tion, 318-19 ; dismissed, 319. 

Mendoza, Bernardino de, Spanish 
ambassador in England and 
France, 14, 105, 186-9, * 98-99, 
200. 

Mendoza, Ihigo de, 155, 162. 

Merino sheep introduced into 
Spain b;y Catharine of Lancaster, 
218. 

Middleburg besieged by the 
Gueux, 107 ; Romero's attempt 
to relieve, 107-10. 

Middleton, Captain, at Puente de 
Burgos, 38. 

Milford Lane, Strand, 263. 

Mondragon, Spanish commander 
in Middleburg, 107-8, 119. 

Monins, Lady, of Waldeshare, 
350, 372-3. 

Montague, Viscount (Browne), at 
Durham Place, 269. 

Monterey, Count, conspirator 
against the Queen Marie Anne 
of Neuberg, 298. 

Montigny, at Madrid, 94. 

Montreuil, besieged by the 
English, 79, 80, 81 ; Romero's 
duel at, 83-6. 

Mora, Cristobal, deserts from the 
English service, 82 ; challenges 
Gamboa, 83 ; his duel with 
Romero, 83-6. 

Moors, sumptuary rules for, 213. 

Morton, Earl of, 185. 

Morton, Earl of (the younger), 
appeals to Philip II., 199. 



3*4 



INDEX. 



Murder attempted from Durham 
Place, 276-7 ; escape of the 
criminal by the water-gate, 278. 

N. 

Naarden, the massacre at, 100-1 . 

Nantouillet, Provost of Paris, a 
hostage in England, 276, 278. 

Navas, Marquis de, sent to Eng- 
land with Philip's first present 
to Mary, 139, 146, 148, 164. 

Negro, Sir Pero, a Spanish captain 
in England, 78, 90. 

Noailles, de, French ambassador, 
his account of the marriage of 
Philip and Mary, 128-31 ; his 
efforts against the match, 130, 

J 37- 

Norfolk, Duke of, besieges Mon- 
tr euil, (1544) 79-80. 

Norfolk, Duke of (1698), 369, 371. 

Norris, Sir Edward, at Corunna, 
34 ; wounded, 38. 

Norris, Sir John, commands the 
land forces of the expedition 
against Portugal, 9, 23, .25, 26, 
35-6, 41-3, 45-6, 51, 55, 58, 62 ; 
withdrawn from Lisbon, 04-6 ; 
arrival at Cascaes, 66. 

North, Lord, 153. 

Northumberland, Duke of, makes 
use of the Spaniards to overawe 
Somerset, 91 ; dismisses them, 
91. See also Dudley. 

Nunez, Cristobal, Dr., his orders 
for the rearing of a child (Fran- 
cisco Fernando), 335~9- 

O. 

Odonte, Francisco de, letter from 
Lisbon, 58-9. 

Olivares, Chamberlain of Philip 
II., 149. 

Olivares (the Count-Duke), Minis- 
ter of Philip IV., 247, 249, 326-7 ; 
his orders for the rearing of 
Philip's child, 330-3. 

Olivares, Count de, Spanish am- 
bassador in Rome, 197. 

O'Neil, Shan, at Durham Place, 
269, 276, 281. 

Orange, Prince of, 98, 105, 114. 

Orfeur, Captain (1698), 354, 369. 



Oropesa, Count de, Spanish Minis- 
ter, 295. 

Osorio, Captain, 109. 

Oviedo, Bishop of, refuses to par- 
ticipate in the exorcism, 303. 

P. 

Pacheco, Don Juan, 165. 

Paget, Charles, Guise's envoy to 
England, 192. 

Paramour, Mr., of Straten- 
borough, 350. 

Parma, Duke of, his share in the 
defeat of the Armada, 5 ; his 
negotiation with the Scotch 
Catholics, 200. 

Pembroke, Earl of, 152-3, 161, 
164 ; buys Durham Place (1640), 
287. 

Penalties for infraction of the 
sumptuary laws, 214, 216-17, 
218, 241, 247, 256. 

Peniche, the English at, 43-7, 51. 

Perez, Ensign, deserts to the 
Scots, 90. 

Persons, Father Robert, the Je- 
suit, his action in the plot against 
England, 186, 198, 201. 

Pescara, Marquis de, 140, 149, 155. 

Peter the Cruel of Castile, his 
sumptuary decrees, 217-18. 

Pewry, rector of Knowlton, 350. 

Philip II. accepts the match with 
Mary at his father's bidding, 
138-9 ; his journey to Vallado- 
lid, 138 ; splendour of his outfit, 
140 ; his reception of the Eng- 
lish envoys, 142-3 ; splendid 
departure from Corunna, 144- 
7 ; voyage and arrival in Eng- 
land, 147-9 ; his gracious 
manner, 148 ; at Southampton, 
149-52 ; journey and arrival at 
Winchester, 152-4 ; his first 
interview with the Queen, 
154-7 ; his splendour at the 
wedding, 160 ; at the marriage 
banquet, 16 1-3 ; his attention 
to Mary, 166 ; his departure 
from England, 174. 

Philip II., his reception of the 
news of the disaster of the 
Armada, 6 ; his action on the 



INDEX. 



335 



news of the English expedition, 

30, 44- 
Philip II. and the Flemish nobles, 

93-4- 

Philip II. and the Portuguese suc- 
cession, 13. 

Philip II., his character, 177. 

Philip II., his attitude towards 
England, 8-9, 178-83, 184, 188, 
190-5, 197-8, 202. 

Philip II., his splendour in appa- 
rel, 225-6 ; his sumptuary- 
decrees, 228, 229, 230, 234-5. 

Philip III., his sumptuary decrees, 
238-44. 

Philip IV., his appearance and 
character, 323 ; Spain under his 
rule, 234-5 ; his youthful dissi- 
pation, 326-7 ; adventure in the 
convent of San Placido, 328. 

Philip IV., decrees against extra- 
vagances in apparel, 247-54. 

Philip V. of Spain, his sumptuary 
decrees, 255-6. 

Pole, Arthur, at Durham Place, 
269, 281. 

Pole, Cardinal, 267. 

Portocarrero, Cardinal, forwards 
the intrigue against the Queen 
Marie Anne of Neuberg, 297 
passim. 

Portuguese succession, claimants 
to, 12, 13, 14. 

Portuguese feeling towards the 
English expedition, 43, 47-50, 

53-5- 
Poulet, Earl (1700), 373-5. 
Poynings, at Durham Place, 265. 
Prior, Matthew, 346. 
Puente de Burgos, fight at, 38. 

Q. 

Quadra, Bishop, urges Philip to 
make war on England, 180. 

Quadra (Bishop of Aquila, Spanish 
ambassador) at Durham Place, 
273 ; complaints of his conduct, 
275 ; facilitates the escape of a 
criminal, 277-8 ; Cecil's attempt 
to dislodge him, 278-9 ; his de- 
fence of his conduct, 280-1 ; 
expelled from Durham Place, 
281. 

Quevedo, 253. 



R. 



Raleigh, Sir Walter, 28, 35 ; at 
Durham Place, 266, 267, 271, 
286. 

Ravenstein, Austrian envoy, at 
Durham Place, 273. 

Redondo, Count de, beheaded in 
Lisbon, 67. 

Relations between England and 
Spain. See Spain. 

Renard and the marriage of Philip 
and Mary, 137, 148 ; his plan to 
marry Elizabeth to the Duke of 
Savoy, 178. 

Requesens, Grand Commander, 
Alba's successor in the Nether- 
lands, 107-10, in, 114. 

Richmond, Philip and Mary at, 
166. 

Riots in Madrid against the sump- 
tuary decrees, 237, 252, 257-9. 

Rivalry between Spanish and 
French ambassadors, 282-3. 

Robles, Caspar de, his account of 
the siege of Haarlem, 104. 

Rocaberti, Inquisitor - General 
(Charles II.), 302; his share in 
the exorcism, 303 passim ; death, 

3i3- 

Rodas, Jerome, Spanish member 
of the Flemish Council, 115, 
119 ; his head demanded by the 
Flemings, 120. 

Rome, intrigues in, respecting the 
invasion of England, 197-201. 

Romero, Julian, his origin, 78-9 ; 
enters the English service, 82 ; 
sent to Scotland, 82 ; at Calais, 
83 ; accepts Mora's challenge to 
Gamboa, 83 ; the duel, 83-6 ; 
rewarded by the kings of France 
and England, 86 ; in London, 
87 ; arrested for debt, 87-8 ; 
accused of treason, 88-9 ; at 
Pinkie and Leith, 90 ; dismissed 
the English service, 91 ; sur- 
renders Dinant to the French, 

92 ; bravery at St. Quintin, 92 ; 
in Italy, 93 ; sent to Flanders, 

93 ; aids in the arrest of 
Egmont, 94-5 ; his severity, 
95-6 ; returns to Spain, 95-6 ; 
rumoured intention of attacking 



26 



386 



INDEX. 



England, 97 ; again sent to 
Flanders, 98 ; at Mons, 98-9 ; 
his account of affairs in the 
Netherlands, 99 ; his cruelty at 
Naarden, 100-1 ; his behaviour 
at Haarlem, 102-4 > hi s march 
of vengeance through Holland, 
105 ; begs for leave to return 
home, 106,111; his unsuccessful 
attempt to relieve Middleburg, 
107-10 ; his letter to Requesens, 
1 12-13 ; again in the Nether- 
lands, 1 14 ; sent by the Flemish 
Council to pacify the mutinous 
Spaniards, 115 ; his share in the 
"Spanish Fury," 116-20; his 
head demanded by the Flem- 
ings, 120 ; marches out of 
Flanders, 120 ; to return from 
Italy in command, 120 ; dies on 
the way, 120. 

Romney, Earl of (1697), 368. 

Ronquillo, Francisco, a conspirator 
against the Queen Marie Anne 
of Neuberg, 298, 302. 

Ruffs, decrees against, 243-5. 

Rusticucci, Cardinal, 197. 

Ruthven, Raid of, 190. 

Rutland, Earl of, 153. 



S. 



Saint Ferdinand, King, in Seville, 
212. 

Salablanca, a Spanish captain at 
Boulogne, 81. 

Sampson, Captain, at Corunna, 33. 

San Anton, gate of, Lisbon, 60. 

Sancho de Avila, Spanish com- 
mander in Flanders, 76; at 
Egmont's arrest, 94 ; in the 
Spanish fury, 116-20; his head 
demanded by the Flemings, 
120. 

Sancho Bravo, Spanish officer in 
Lisbon, 59-60, 65. 

San Felipe, galleon captured 
Drake, 8-9. by 

San Roque, monastery, Lisbon, 
60. 

Santa Cruz defeats Strozzi at the 
Azores, 16, 18 ; offers to invade 
England, 194, 200, 202. 



Santa Catalina, gate of, Lisbon, 60. 
Santander, arrival of the Armada 

in, 5- 

Santiago, Philip's reception at, 
142-3. 

Santorio, Cardinal, 197. 

Sanzio, Cardinal, 197, 201. 

Savoy, the, Strand, 264. 

Scottish Catholics appeal to Philip, 
186-9, 199 ; proposal to invade 
England in the interest of Spain, 
199-200. 

Sebastian, King of Portugal, 12. 

Seymour, at Durham Place, 265 ; 
grants Durham Place to Eliza- 
beth, 265. See also Somerset. 

Shrewsbury, Earl of (1689), 359. 

Sidney, Colonel, at Puente de 
Burgos, 38. 

Sidney, Lady, at Durham Place, 
269. 

Silk manufactory in Spain, 220-1, 
224, 227. 

Sirleto, Cardinal, 197. 

Sixtus V., Pope, subsidises the 
Armada, 5 ; joins in the plot 
against England, 196-203. 

Somerset, Protector, 90-1. 

Sotomayor, Inquisitor - General, 
rebukes Philip IV. for his sacre- 
ligious amour, 329. 

Southampton, the landing of Philip 
II. at, 149. 

Spain, relations with England, 177 
passim. 

Spaniards, their discontent at their 
position in England with Philip 
II., 153, 161, 164-7, 168, 169, 
170, 1 7 1-4. 

Spanish accounts of the coming 
of Philip to England, 132-7. 

Spanish extravagance in dress, 
223-4, 229, 2 45> 249. 

Spanish Fury, the, 115-20. 

Spanish mercenaries in the Eng- 
lish service, 77-8 ; at Boulogne, 
80-4 ; fresh bodies recruited, 
82 ; sent to Scotland, 82-3 ; at 
Boulogne and Calais, 83-4 ; sent 
to Scotland, 89-90. 

Spanish nation clamours for re- 
venge for the defeat of the 
Armada, 6-7. 

Spanish troops in Flanders mutiny 



INDEX. 



387 



for pay, 1 14-15 ; plot to seize 
Brussels, 115; massacres at 
Alost, &c, 1 15-16; the Spanish 
Fury, 117-20; marched out of 
Flanders, 120. 

Spanish succession, intrigues re- 
specting, 292-4. 

Spencer, Master of the Ordnance 
at Corunna, 34. 

Spes, Guerau de, Spanish am- 
bassador, 182. 

Squillaci, Marquis de (Esquilache), 
his attempt to suppress the 
Chambergo and cloak, 257-9. 

Stanhope, his letters from Spain 
about Charles the Bewitched, 
29^ 296, 3°4- 

Stourton, Deputy - Governor of 
Windsor (1700), 368-9, 371. 

Strand, the, in Tudor times, 264, 
270-1. 

Strand Lane, 263. 

Strange, Lord, 153, 161. 

Stukeley, Thomas, his proposed 
invasion of Ireland, 96-7 ; at 
Durham Place, 269. 

Suffolk, Duke of (Brandon), 80. 

Sumptuary enactments in Eng- 
land, 208. 

Sumptuary enactments in Spain, 
208 passim. 

Surrey, Earl of, 153. 

Sussex, Countess of, 284. 

Swiftsure, the, sails surreptitiously 
with Essex on board, 28, 35, 41. 

Sydenham, Captain, sad death of, 
at Corunna, 37. 

T. 

Talbot, Lord, 153. 

Tassis, J. B., Spanish ambassador 
in France, 185, 188, 194-5. 

Taverns in London (1693), 353-5, 
356-7, 360. 

Thomas, Timothy, M.A., head- 
master of Sandwich School, 351. 

Throgmorton's plot, discovery of, 

195- 
Titles, decree of Philip II. against, 

230-7> 242. 
Torres Vedras, on the road to 

Lisbon, 51-2. 
Trains, decree against, 216. 



Treason against Elizabeth at Dur- 
ham Place, 269, 273. 

Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, at 
Durham Place, 266-7. 

U. 

Umpton, Colonel, at Corunna, 33. 

Underhyll, Edward, the hot-gos- 
peller, at Queen Mary's wedding, 
126, 161-2. 

Urraca, Juan Antonio, a conspira- 
tor against the Queen Marie 
Anne of Neuberg, 298. 

V. 

Valenzuela, favourite of Mariana, 
Queen Regent of Spain, 309. 

Valladolid, rejoicing and mourning 
at, 138 ; Philip's departure from, 
141. 

Van Dyk, Mr. (1700), 371. 

Vargas, Alonso de, Spanish com- 
mander in Flanders, 1 15-16, 117. 

Vigo burnt by the English, 70. 

Villa Dorta, Count de, pursues the 
English, 65-6. 

Villanueva Geronimo, Minister of 
Philip IV., 328 ; punished by 
the Inquisition for sacrilege, 

329. 339- 
Villa Sirga, Sir Alonso, a Spanish 
captain murdered in London, 

77, 9°- 

W. 

Waldershare Park, 350, 372-3. 

Walloon collars, 247-8. 

Walsingham, Secretary, 9, 15, 35, 
97. 

Wedding feasts, decrees against 
extravagance at, 213, 216. 

William III., death of, 372. 

Williams, Sir Roger, aids Essex to 
escape, 28, 35, 41 ; takes part in 
the attack on Lisbon, 42, 51-2, 
56-8, 64, 68. 

Williams of Thame, Sir John, 149. 

Willoughby, Lord, 153. 

Winchester, Marquis of, 153, 162 ; 
at Durham Place, 269. 

Windebank, Captain, 107. 

Wingfield's account of the Portu- 
guese expedition, 10 passim. 



388 



INDEX. 



Wingfield, Anthony, at Puente de 

Burgos, 38. 
Wingfield, Sir Edward, 41. 
Wingfield, Captain Richard, 33. 
Woodward, Parson (1700), 375. 
Worcester, Earl of, 153. 
Wotton, Dr., 92. 
Wyatt's rebellion, 128, 137. 



Yorke, Colonel, at Corunna, 37 
at Lisbon, 55, 60. 



Zeeland lost to Spain, 1 10. 




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